Decision
Mr X and Coillte
From Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information (OCEI)
Case number: OCE-156997-38H9P4
Published on
From Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information (OCEI)
Case number: OCE-156997-38H9P4
Published on
Whether Coillte had taken sufficient steps to identify and locate all relevant environmental information within the scope of the appellant’s request in accordance with article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations.
29 January 2026
1. On 09 December 2024, the appellant sought the following:
“[I]nformation relating to a Landslide along the Yellow River valley of Forest Property LM09 c. November / December 2024.
[T]o include;
1) Environmental / Ecological Assessment of the issue.
- To include details of a) Mitigation b) Remediation
2) ERA for works conducted, including AA Screening
3) Communications with relevant authorities whose statutory roles may have been impacted by the landslide - notably Leitrim County Council, IFI, NPWS.
4) Dates of works and operational monitoring records.
5) Internal communications, including WhatsApp and Text messages.
6) Assessment of Root Cause
Please interpret this request broadly.
Please provide a schedule of records with your decision.”
2. On 09 January 2025, Coillte issued its decision part-granting access to the information being requested by the appellant. Under article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations, Coillte refused access to information relating to points 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 of the appellant’s request because it had been unable to locate any relevant records. However, Coillte granted access to information relating to point 5 of the appellant’s request and it released two records titled ‘Information’ and an attachment of a screenshot to him.
3. On 10 January 2025 the appellant requested an internal review of this decision, as he was not satisfied that all information falling within the scope of his request had been provided. Additionally, the appellant highlighted that Coillte had not indicated what searches it had undertaken, when considering his request.
4. On 10 February 2025, Coillte affirmed its original decision.
5. The appellant brought an appeal to this Office on 27 February 2025, as he contended that pursuant to article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations, Coillte had failed to demonstrate that all reasonable steps have been taken to identify the requested information.
6. I am directed by the Commissioner for Environmental Information to complete a review under article 12(5) of the Regulations. In doing so, I have had regard to all submissions made by the
appellant and by the Department. I have also examined the contents of the records at issue.
In addition, I have had regard to:
• the Guidance document provided by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government on the implementation of the AIE Regulations (‘the Minister’s Guidance’);
• Directive 2003/4/EC (‘the AIE Directive’), upon which the AIE Regulations are based;
• the 1998 United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (‘the Aarhus Convention’); and
• The Aarhus Convention – An Implementation Guide (Second edition, June 2014) (‘the Aarhus Guide’).
7. What follows does not comment or make findings on each and every argument advanced, but all relevant points have been considered.
8. In accordance with article 12(5) of the AIE Regulations, the role of this Office is to review the public authority's internal review decision and to affirm, annul or vary it. Where appropriate in the circumstances of an appeal, the public authority may be directed to make available environmental information to the appellant.
9. The scope of this review is confined to whether Coillte has taken reasonable and adequate steps to identify all information held by or for it within the scope of the appellant’s request such that article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations applies.
10. In his submissions of 27 February 2025, the appellant stated as follows:
“I am not satisfied that Coillte have taken all reasonable steps to identify the requested information.
Two records were provided for Item 5 and all other elements were refused under Article 7(5).
No searches were conducted for correspondence with IFI or for NPWS despite their being referred to in my request.
The searches conducted must have yielded matches but no details are provided as to the number of matches and how they were filtered relevant to my request.
WhatsApp group messages were not searched. Text messages were not searched.
I am not convinced that the BAU3 manager was the only (or the most appropriate) SME. Two other staff members who were on the ground do not appear to have been contacted regarding this request; nor has the Environmental Manager / Ecology Unit who would be responsible for producing the records for Item 2.
I cannot accept Coillte's explanation of the incident being under investigation as being totally valid because as of the time of my request works had been carried out on the landslide so it was more than just under investigation. Operations had been carried out to clear the road.
This should have necessitated records being produced for Items 1, 2 and 4 at the very least.
I can accept that no records exist for Item 3. Although this would not represent good practice on the part of Coillte it would be consistent with their insular and secretive approach to potentially harmful environmental incidents.
I am not satisfied that all records have been provided for Item 5 because works were clearly commissioned to clear the blocked road.”
11. Coillte made submissions to this Office on 28 April 2025 and confirmed its position that it refused the appellant’s request for environmental information, pursuant to article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations. It stated as follows:
“[W]e rely upon the full effect and meaning on the contents of the Initial Decision of 09 January 2025 and the contents of the IR Decision of 10 February 2025, the decision communicated, the interpretation of the Request, and the approach taken by each decision maker.”
12. In its initial decision of 09 January 2025, Coillte had submitted as follows:
“I am granting partial access to the information sought as detailed below.
In relation points 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 of the Request, I examined material held by Coillte and having taken all reasonable steps to locate the requested information and establish whether the information you have requested exists, I have been unable to locate any records relevant to your request.
I therefore refuse your request under Article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations.[…]
My approach to dealing with cases where a public authority has effectively refused a request under 7(5) is that I must be satisfied that adequate steps have been taken to identify and locate relevant environmental information, having regard to the particular circumstances. In determining whether the steps taken are adequate in the circumstances, I consider that a standard of reasonableness must necessarily apply.
It is not normally my function to search for environmental information. We are further aware from the decisions of the Commissioner in Mr G and Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Mr X and Environmental Protection Agency that we are required to justify how we came to the conclusion that the records do not exist […]
In relation to Point 5 of the Request, information relating to this point was retrieved and I am granting access to this information. Please find attached two records for your information.”
13. In its internal review decision issued of 10 February 2025, Coillte affirmed its original decision, wherein it stated:
“Reasons for the Decision
Following my review of the refusal of information in reliance of Article 7(5) of the Regulations […] I consider that reasonable search steps were taken to locate the requested information and establish whether the information you have requested exists.
The Decision informed you that the AIE Team communicated with personnel from Business Area Unit 3 (BAU) to search for the requested information.
The staff member consulted, and identified as the subject matter expert, was the BAU 3 Team lead. The BAU 3 Team Lead is a senior member of staff.
A key element of the role of the BAU Team Lead is to manage forest operations for BAU 3 and to coordinate and manage the operations team meetings, as required. Following discussions with the BAU 3 Team Lead it was confirmed that the information requested does not exist.
In addition, the initial decision maker consulted the BAU 3 Estates Manager, BAU 3 Operations Manager and the relevant Environmental Officer. It was confirmed by the respective SMEs that reasonable searches had been carried out to ascertain if information relating to the Request exists. A key word search was carried out of Sharepoint Online and Microsoft Outlook as these would be the systems used to generate and share information on this subject.
The key words used as part of the search included: “Forest Property LM09”, “Yellow River Valley”, “Landslide” and searching emails to and from Leitrim County Council “@leitrimcoco.ie.”
The basis on which it was concluded that Coillte does not hold any information is that this incident is currently under investigation.
Consequently, I am satisfied to confirm that no records relating to the Request exist in Coillte and therefore the Decision is affirmed.”
14. Article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations is the relevant provision to consider, where the question arises as to whether the requested environmental information or any further environmental information is held by or for the public authority concerned.
It provides as follows:
“Where a request is made to a public authority and the information requested is not held by or for the authority concerned, that authority shall inform the applicant as soon as possible that the information is not held by or for it”.
15. This Office’s approach to dealing with this type of case is to assess whether adequate steps have been taken to identify and locate relevant environmental information, having regard to the particular circumstances. In determining whether the steps taken are adequate in the circumstances, a standard of reasonableness is applied. What will be considered reasonable will vary from case to case but as a general guide, I set out below the type of information that my Office would generally expect to be set out in a decision where a public authority is relying on article 7(5) of the Regulations;
I. an outline of exactly which areas/units etc. of the organisation were searched for the information.
II. an explanation of how searches were carried out (i.e. manually, by computer, by name, by key words). Keywords should be recorded and provided in the decision as appropriate.
III. details of the individuals consulted in connection with the search.
IV. a description of the searches carried out to cover the possibility of misfiled/misplaced records.
V. details of guidelines, practices, procedures and arrangements in relation to the storage, filing, archiving, retention and destruction of the type of information requested in this case.
VI. the basis on which the public authority has concluded that it does not hold any information within the scope of the appellant’s request and that no such information is held by any other person or body on its behalf.
16. Article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations allows public authority to refuse a request if it does not hold the requested information. For a public authority to successfully rely on this provision, it must, among other things, provide evidence that it carried out adequate searches for the environmental information requested.
The appellant contends that Coillte has failed to demonstrate that all reasonable steps were taken to identify the requested information. He says that he is not satisfied that Coillte consulted with the correct people to undertake searches; that the right data sources were searched and that the search terms and methods were meaningful. He refutes Coillte’s assertion that the incident is under investigation. He contends that at the time of his request, he is aware that works had already been carried out on the landslide and therefore, this incident could not have been under investigation. He highlights that it is evident that works had been commissioned by Coillte to clear the blocked road at issue and therefore, information relating to his request should have been forthcoming.Whilst Coillte has provided descriptions of the searches it undertook with respect to the appeal as a whole, to my mind it has failed to set out in sufficient detail the steps it took to identify and locate relevant environmental information.
17. Due to the specific keywords noted, that being‘“Forest Property LM09”, “Yellow River Valley”, “Landslide” and searching emails to and from Leitrim County Council “@leitrimcoco.ie.” , it is my view that due to the remit and work of Coillte, a search for these terms would likely return a large number of results, which would need to be filtered to determine if any were relevant to the appellant’s request.
18. However, Coillte provided no detail as to the process undertaken that found no returned results were relevant to the request. In the absence of Coillte providing a breakdown of any results which were returned on searching the keywords, nor explaining its position as to why, in its view, none of the returned results were in scope of the request, I cannot find that adequate steps were taken to locate all information relevant to the request.
19. I note that Coillte’s explanation as to how their BAU 3 Estates Manager, BAU 3 Operations Manager and the relevant Environmental Officer arrived at the conclusion that no records relevant to the appellant’s request exist is as follows:“The basis on which it was concluded that Coillte does not hold any information is that this incident is currently under investigation.”
20. It may well be the case that the incident was under investigation at the time of the request, but I do not consider this to be an satisfactory explanation as to why no records exist. The very fact that an investigation was under way suggests to me that information related to certain parts of the appellant’s request may well exist. The appellant has made the point that at the time of the request certain works had been commissioned by Coillte to clear the blocked road caused by the landslide. I make no conclusion whether this was indeed the case, but Coillte’s failure to address this point reinforces my doubts that adequate searches have been carried out on this occasion in relation to the appellant’s request. I say this bearing in mind that the article 7(5) of the Regulations do not require absolute certainty as to the existence or otherwise of information, nor do they require a forensic trawling exercise to be conducted by public authorities, rather a test of reasonableness and an adequate search exercise should be performed.
21. All that being said, and for the reasons I have set out above, I am not satisfied that the test set out in article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations - whether the public authority has taken all reasonable steps to locate the information sought – has been met in this instance.
22. Having regard to the above, I am unable to find that article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations can be relied upon by Coillte.
23. Accordingly, I annul the decision of Coillte in its entirety and direct it to consider the appellant’s request afresh and make a new internal review decision in accordance with the provisions of the AIE Regulations, and in particular the requirement to take adequate steps to identify and locate all environmental information held by it within the scope of the request.
24. A party to the appeal or any other person affected by this decision may appeal to the High Court on a point of law from the decision. Such an appeal must be initiated not later than two months after notice of the decision was given to the person bringing the appeal.
Gemma Farrell
On behalf of the Commissioner for Environmental Information