Decision
Ms. X & Coillte
From Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information (OCEI)
Case number: OCE-165124-G0J3J4
Published on
From Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information (OCEI)
Case number: OCE-165124-G0J3J4
Published on
Whether Coillte was justified in refusing the appellant’s request on the basis that no further environmental information within the scope of that request is held by or for it.
16 April 2026
1. This case relates to a previous appeal to this Office, reference OCE-148189-F7M1K6 .
2. On 18 December 2023 the appellant made a request to Coillte under the AIE Regulations seeking access to the following information:
“I request, by email, an Excel spreadsheet listing all Standard Operating Procedure documents currently available for use by Coillte. The spreadsheet to include the following information:
• Title/name of the Standard Operating Procedure ('SOP')
• Number of pages of the current SOP
• Revision number of the current SOP
• Issue date of the SOP”
3. On 17 January 2024, Coillte issued its original decision, wherein the decision maker stated that on the basis that having “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”.
4. The appellant sought an internal review of the decision on 16 February 2024.
5. Coillte issued its internal review decision on 14 March 2024, advising that following re-examination of the request that the decision made by the initial decision maker should be affirmed.
6. The appellant submitted an appeal to this Office on 12 April 2024.
7. In the decision on that appeal OCE-148189-F7M1K6 dated 28 August 2025, the Commissioner found that Coillte had not fully considered the appellant’s request, and annulled Coillte’s internal review decision, remitting the case to Coillte and directing that it issue a new internal review decision to the appellant.
8. On 13 November 2025, Coillte issued a new internal review decision on the appellant’s request, varying the previous Decision Maker’s decision and granting access to the information sought by way of informing the appellant that the information had been previously provided to the appellant in response to another AIE request from Coillte.
9. On 28 November 2025, the appellant submitted a further appeal to this Office.
10. I am directed by the Commissioner for Environmental Information to carry out a review of this appeal. I have now completed this review under article 12(5) of the Regulations. In carrying out my review, I have had regard to the submissions made by the appellant and by Coillte. 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’).
11. What follows does not comment or make findings on each and every argument advanced, but all relevant points have been considered.
12. In accordance with article 12(5) of the AIE Regulations, my role 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, I will require the public authority to make available environmental information to the appellant.
13. Pursuant to article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations, this review is concerned with whether Coillte was justified in refusing access to the information requested by the appellant on the basis that no further information within the scope of the request is held by Coillte.
14. Article 7(1) of the AIE Regulations requires public authorities to make available environmental information that is held by or for them on request, subject only to the provisions of the AIE Regulations.
15. Article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations is the relevant provision to consider where the question arises as to whether the requested environmental information is held by or for the public authority concerned. In cases where a public authority has refused a request under article 7(5), this Office 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, a standard of reasonableness is applied. It is not normally this Office’s function to search for environmental information.
16. In its new internal review issued to the appellant on 13 November 2025, Coillte accepted that “interpreting [the appellant’s request] as seeking the environmental information in the form of a list only, and therefore refusing on the basis that such a list does not exist in accordance with Article 7(5), was not appropriate in the circumstances”.
17. Coillte also set out that a list of SOPs was generated by Coillte in response to a separate AIE and issued to the appellant on 5 June 2024. Coillte re-iterated that list of 17 SOPs in its new internal review.
18. On 28 November 2025, the appellant submitted an appeal on this decision to this Office.
19. Within her statement of appeal, the appellant contended that it is unclear whether there are other SOP documents covered by her request, which in Coillte’s view are not environmental information, and as such Coillte have not provided this additional information to her. The appellant also added that Coillte “have given no explanation for the gaps in the sequential numbering of the SOP documents e.g., numbers 1-8 inclusive omitted, 10-21 inclusive omitted, 23 omitted, 26 omitted, 28-29 omitted, 31-33 inclusive omitted, 35-39 inclusive omitted, 46-47 omitted and number 50 omitted”. Based on this, the appellant submitted that Coillte should provide reasoning for the omission of 35 numbers within the 001-051 range of SOP documents which form this appeal.
20. In submissions to this Office dated 18 December 2025, Coillte set out that the 17 SOPs released to the appellant on 5 June 2024 were “identified, assessed, and released as environmental information within the meaning of Article 3(1) of the AIE Regulations and therefore, within the scope of the Request”.
21. Regarding the appellant’s contentions concerning gaps in the numbering of the SOPs, Coillte submitted the following:
“Coillte’s SOP numbering is organisation wide and sequence based. Numbers span all functions, not just environmental management. Consequently, sequences will show gaps when (i) SOPs are non environmental, (ii) SOPs are retired, superseded or reserved/unused, or (iii) where content was overwritten and adopted into or merged with subsequent SOPs”.
22. In addition, Coillte added that “the 35 omitted numbers do not indicate withholding environmental information; they reflect outside‑scope content”.
23. During the course of this review, the Investigator wrote to Coillte with a number of queries, which included seeking clarification from Coillte regarding the SOPs which were refused in this request, and the categories of refusal these SOPs would fit into as set out in Coillte’s submission above.
24. I have carefully examined the list of SOPs which in Coillte’s view, were outside the scope of the request. Of the 35 omitted SOPs, Coillte’s reasoning for these can be summarised as follows:
• 19 of the omitted SOPs were retired, superseded or reserved/unused
• 7 of the omitted SOPs contained content which was overwritten and adopted into or merged with subsequent SOP042 which was released to the appellant
• 3 of the omitted SOP’s were never drafted and/or number skipped due to a clerical error
• 6 of the omitted SOP’s were assigned an SOP number in error, and SOP never drafted. Guideline drafted instead
25. Having considered the list of 17 released SOPs, and also the list of SOPs identified by Coillte as outside the scope of this request, I am satisfied that Coillte has demonstrated that it carried out reasonable and appropriate searches to identify and retrieve the environmental information relevant to this request.
26. Article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations does not require a forensic trawling exercise to be conducted by public authorities, rather a test of reasonableness and an adequate search exercise should be performed.
27. Having considered this case and reviewed all the relevant information above, and in consideration of the number of records that have been released in full to the appellant in relation to this request, I am satisfied that Coillte has taken sufficient steps to determine that it does not hold further environmental information relevant to the appellant’s request.
28. Having carried out a review under article 12(5) of the AIE Regulations, I hereby affirm Coillte’s decision.
29. 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