Ó Oifig an Choimisinéara um Fhaisnéis Comhshaoil
Cásuimhir: OCE-150042-L1Y8Z2
Foilsithe
Teanga: Níl leagan Gaeilge den mhír seo ar fáil.
A) Whether the fee imposed by DAA was justified under article 15(1) of the AIE Regulations
B) Whether DAA is justified in redacting certain information under article 8(a)(i) and 9(1)(c) of the AIE Regulations
02/10/2024
1. On 21 November 2023, the appellant requested the following information from DAA:
“- copies of any correspondence between daa and the EPA with regard to the presence of PFAS on airport lands.
I would prefer to receive this information electronically, ideally in its original electronic format.”
2. DAA issued a decision refusing access to the information sought under article 9(1)(b) of the AIE Regulations and the appellant brought an appeal to this Office on 14 February 2024. On 22 February 2024 the Commissioner issued a decision where he found that DAA had not provided any adequate reasons for the refusal of the requested information. He annulled the decision of DAA and directed that a new decision-making process be carried out.
3. On 29 April 2024, the appellant emailed the investigator at this Office who has dealt with his appeal, to say that two months had passed since the OCEI issued this decision and he had not heard from DAA regarding a new decision or otherwise. The investigator contacted DAA to follow up on this and confirmed with the appellant that DAA had two months to decide whether to appeal the decision, and a further one month to issue a fresh decision.
4. On 14 June 2024 DAA emailed the appellant with a new decision in relation to the request. In its covering email it said:“Please find attached the revised decision letter in relation to AIE 2324 received in November 2023. In accordance with Article 15 of the AIE Regulations a charge of €20 (for the search, retrieval, and compilation of records) is being applied for this AIE request.”
5. The attached decision contained the following:
“Seven environmental records have been identified which relate to your request. A schedule of records for AIE 2324 is included in this letter. This lists the records of environmental information that are considered relevant to your request. It provides the name of the record and the decision made on each record. Two records are now publicly available and can be accessed through this link:
I am granting access to a further redacted five records. Redaction was made on personal information. Right of review Under Article 11 of the AIE Regulations, you have a right to request an internal review of this decision. An internal review involves a complete reconsideration of the matter by a member of the staff of this Department, unconnected with the original decision, of the same or higher rank than the original decision-maker, who may affirm, vary or annul the original decision. If you wish to request an internal review, you can do so by writing to sustainability@daa.ie , referring to this decision, quoting the AIE reference number. This request must be made within one month of the date of receipt of this decision. The decision of an internal review will be communicated to you within one month of receipt of your request for an internal review. Please contact sustainability@daa.ie if I can assist you in any matter relating to your request”
6.On 14 June 2024 the appellant responded to DAA: “As per the AIE page on your website, the imposition of fees must be advised in the decision letter. It says: "Details of any charges that apply will be advised in the decision letter." No information about fees has been provided in the formal decision letter that was sent to me. In addition, the fee schedule published by daa is non-compliant with the AIE Regulations as it provides no details about the circumstances in which a fee may be waived. If the daa is unwilling to provide these records without payment of a fee, then I wish to view them in person.”
7. On 25 June 2024, DAA responded to the appellant with the following:
“Apologies that fees were not detailed in the decision letter itself, but only in the email that had the decision letter attached. The AIE Regulations do not explicitly require that charges be included in the decision letter, however this is referenced in the Dublin airport website. I will endeavour to ensure that the fees are included in future decision letters. On daa’s website, under Article 7, you can find the circumstances in which daa may waive charges: 1. if the record contains only your personal information 2. daa may also reduce the fee having regard to the means of the requester (on production of evidence)." Regarding your request to view the records in person, please note that we do not hold the proposed released documents printed in situ. As per the schedule of the decision letter sent to you on June 14, 2024, five of the records are Outlook items and one is a PDF, digital documents. For both physical and digital documents, the charge for the search, retrieval, and compilation of records still applies. This was stated by the commissioner in the case of Lar McKenna and Offaly County (Case number: CEI/18/0038) - “I regard the acts of searching for and retrieving as being, in these circumstances, essentially the same actions: one searches for information in this context in order to retrieve it. I concluded that since the imposition of a search/retrieval fee is permitted in cases where a requester asks to be supplied with information, it must also be permissible in cases where the requester asks to inspect the information in situ.” We maintain our position to charge €20 for 1 hour of search, retrieval, and compilation of records. A link to access records will be sent to you within two working days of receipt of this fee.”
8. The appellant appealed to this Office on 25 June 2024. He said:“I wish to reactivate the appeal in this case. The fee is not justified in the circumstances.”
9. This Office wrote to DAA on 26 June 2024 informing it we had accepted the appellant’s appeal. DAA responded on 1 July 2024 with a copy of the new decision letter it had issued to the appellant on 14 June 2024. It also noted that the appellant had not requested an internal review. An investigator from this Office responded to DAA on this point explaining:“The Commissioner's powers under article 12 of the AIE Regulations apply to the internal review decision of the public authority only. Therefore, when a decision is annulled, it is only the internal review decision that is annulled and must be remade by the public authority. Due to this, the requestor is not required to seek a new internal review before appealing to our office in the case of a remitted decision. DAA will have the opportunity to make submissions on the appeal in due course.”
10. I have now completed my 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 DAA Public Limited Company. In addition, I have had regard to:
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. Article 11(5) of the regulations sets out that a reference to a request being refused, in whole or in part information includes a request that has not been dealt with in accordance with articles 3, 4 or 5 of the AIE Directive, including the ground that the amount of the fee charged under article 15(1) is excessive.
13. The appellant submits that the fee of proposed by DAA in this case is not reasonable. As such, the scope of my review is whether or not the request has been dealt with in accordance with Article 5(2) of the AIE Directive (implemented by article 15(1) of the AIE Regulations) – whether the fee proposed by DAA is reasonable in this instance.
14. DAA has withheld certain information contained within the five records citing article 8(a)(i). The scope of this review also includes whether DAA is justified in withholding this information.
15. The public authority wrote to this Office with the following submission on 23 July 2024:
“On 14/06/2024 we issued a new decision for case AIE 2324 (OCE-146437-P0L8D6) – we identified seven records that were in scope for this request. Two of these records are now publicly available on our website. Five are proposed for release subject to payment of a 20euro fee. This charge is being levied in respect of the search, retrieval, and compilation of records. Four of these records are emails, and their identification followed a review of inboxes by four different people in daa. Three daa staff members uploaded records to the internal SharePoint – that took thirty minutes. It took a further thirty minutes to compile and convert the emails to PDF and to redact personal information from these emails. The AIE section of daa’s website clearly states that €20 per hour is charged for search, retrieval, compilation and copying of records. The charges were requested in the body of the email, with the attached decision letter. The applicant objected to the charges, he stated that:
“As per the AIE page on your website, the imposition of fees must be advised in the decision letter. It says: "Details of any charges that apply will be advised in the decision letter." No information about fees has been provided in the formal decision letter that was sent to me. In addition, the fee schedule published by daa is non-compliant with the AIE Regulations as it provides no details about the circumstances in which a fee may be waived. If daa is unwilling to provide these records without payment of a fee, then I wish to view them in person.”
daa disagreed with this view …
We maintain our position to charge €20 for 1 hour of search, retrieval, and compilation of records. A link to access records will be sent to you within two working days of receipt of this fee.”
Conclusion: daa is asking for a reasonable fee to release the records requested. We maintain our decision to charge for one hour of search, retrieval, and compilation of records in accordance with article 15(1) of the AIE Regulations.
16. On 30 July 2024, an investigator from this Office wrote to DAA requesting a copy of the records at issue. She also asked DAA to clarify what information (if any) is being withheld from these records, along with the exemption within the AIE Regulations DAA is relying on to withhold this information. The investigator also drew DAA’s attention to the duty to give reasons.
17. DAA responded on 9 August 2024 with a copy of the five relevant records. It also set out a schedule of records and clarified what information it intended to redact in each of the records. The first two records listed in the schedule (labelled 1 and 2) are publically available online and DAA provided a link to both. The rest of the records labelled 3, 4, 5, 5.1 and 6 were stated as being part-granted with redactions being made under article 8(a)(i) in all five records, and in record 4 – a redaction was made of“third-party name under 9(1)(c) of the AIE Regulations.”
18. The investigator also wrote to the appellant on 14 August 2024 seeking clarification on the scope of the appeal. The purpose of this email was to clarify whether he was seeking the redacted information within the records under article 8(a)(i). The appellant responded later that day stating“I would like the names included. They are staff members of public authorities and this is not personal information under AIE anymore than it would be personal information under Section 37 of the FOI Act.”
Article 8(a)(i)
19. DAA has sought to rely on article 8(a)(i) to withhold certain information within the five records at issue. In order to rely on article 8(a)(i) the information must show disclosure of the information—“(a) would adversely affect— (i) the confidentiality of personal information relating to a natural person who has not consented to the disclosure of the information, and where that confidentiality is otherwise protected by law.”
20. When relying on article 8(a)(i) of the AIE Regulations a public authority must show that the information at issue is personal information relating to a natural person, who has not consented to its disclosure; that the personal information has an element of confidentiality, that the confidentiality of that personal information is provided by law; and that the disclosure of the information at issue would adversely affect that confidentiality. The risk of the confidentiality being undermined must be reasonably foreseeable and not purely hypothetical.
21. DAA has not provided a satisfactory explanation as to why article 8(a)(i) applies in this case for the reasons I will set out below. Originally, DAA had sought to rely on a different exemption to refuse the request in full. But regardless of what exemption is being applied, the duty to give reasons still stands. At this juncture I feel it necessary to reiterate my comment from my decision of 22 February 2024 in relation to this same request:
“I understand that the requestors in these appeals may feel that this allows DAA to have an additional opportunity to consider their requests, and will add a considerable delay to this case. But it appears to be to be the least worst option given the nature of the decisions issued in respect of these requests. If DAA issue further decisions in respect of these requests without reasons, I may have to consider simply ordering release of the information.”
22. The duty to give reasons was brought to DAA’s attention in the Commissioner’s decision issued on 22 February 2024, and is the basis upon which DAA’s decision was annulled. To reiterate - articles 7(4) and 11(4) of the AIE Regulations require public authorities to provide reasons for refusal at both original and internal review decision stage, consistent with Article 4(5) of the AIE Directive. In this regard, the High Court inRight to Know v An Taoiseach [2018] IEHC 372 noted, in particular, that“in light of the adjudicatory processes in which a decision maker is required to engage pursuant to [a]rticles 10(3), (4) and (5) and 11(4) of the AIE Regulations, the mere invoking of the statutory ground upon which disclosure of environmental information may be exempted cannot, to my mind, constitute a sufficient reason for the refusal” (paragraph 106). The Court held that in an absence of any indicator in the review decision that the balancing exercise mandated by articles 10(3) and (4) had been carried out, suggested that no balancing exercise had, in fact, been undertaken and that the same was true in respect of the mandatory obligation set out in article10(5) of the AIE Regulations (paragraph 87).
23. As I said in that decision:
“ 17. This view aligns with the decision of the Court of Justice of the EU in C-619/19 Land Baden Württemberg v DR. This decision contains some useful guidance in relation to the application of exceptions generally. The CJEU noted in particular, at paragraph 69 of its judgment: “As the Advocate General has observed in point 34 of his Opinion, [the] obligation to state reasons is not fulfilled where a public authority merely refers formally to one of the exceptions provided for in Article 4(1) of Directive 2003/4. On the contrary, a public authority which adopts a decision refusing access to environmental information must set out the reasons why it considers that the disclosure of that information could specifically and actually undermine the interest protected by the exceptions relied upon. The risk of that interest being undermined must be reasonably foreseeable and not purely hypothetical.”
18. It is clear from my review of the decision-making records in this appeal that DAA has not complied with its duty to give reasons for its decisions in respect of these requests. It is not possible for the appellants to discern why their requests have been refused, as DAA have merely made reference to some provisions of the AIE Regulations, without any further explanation. In the decisions in respect of request A, it is not even clear which provisions of the AIE Regulations are being relied upon. Due to this failure to provide any or any adequate reasons for refusal, I find that DAA was not justified in refusing the information sought.
24. In its fresh decision following my remittal of the case, DAA simply stated that it was redacting information under article 8(a)(i) of the AIE Regulations,“personal information” and provided no further detail regarding its application of the provision. It provided no explanation as to whether that information is, in fact, personal information, which has the quality of confidence required to engage article 8(a)(i) of the AIE Regulations. DAA also provided no explanation as to whether the confidentiality of any such information is provided by law, nor did it identify any law upon which it was relying.
25. Furthermore, DAA did not refer to articles 10(3) and 10(4) of the AIE Regulations, which requires it to weigh the public interest served by disclosure against the interest served by refusal and had determined that the public interest would not be served by disclosure. DAA gave no detail regarding any balancing exercise carried out.
26. In its submission to this Office, DAA provided no further explanation regarding its refusal of the information withheld from these records under article 8(a)(i). When the appeal was accepted by this Office on 2 July 2024, DAA was asked to provide submissions explaining and justifying the basis for its decision and also setting out any relevant public interest argument. I also note that the investigator reminded DAA of the duty to give reasons in their email of 30 July 2024.
27. Having examined the redactions in the five records, I am satisfied that the withheld information can be described as the names of staff of public authorities (DAA and EPA), their email addresses/contact numbers and job titles. For clarity I have separated the redactions out into a number of distinct categories which include:
- EPA and DAA employee names
- EPA and DAA employee job titles
- EPA and DAA employee email addresses
- EPA and DAA employee contact phone numbers
28. When relying on article 8(a)(i) of the AIE Regulations a public authority must show not only that the information at issue is personal information relating to a natural person, who has not consented to its disclosure; but also that the personal information has an element of confidentiality. The public authority must show that the confidentiality of the information is protected by law and that this confidentiality would be adversely effected by the release of the information sought.
29. DAA have not provided any reasons as to how 8(a)(i) applies to the withheld information. No attempt has been made to identify any legal basis for the protection of the confidentiality of the information sought or to show how any of the other required elements of 8(a)(i) are satisfied in the circumstances. On that basis, I find that the decision of DAA is not justified with regard to the AIE Regulations. Accordingly, I direct the release of the redacted information in all five records.
30. I also note that in record 3, listed on the schedule, titled“Dublin Airport PFAS reporting” DAA has sought to redact the name of a produce facility. In order for Article 8(a)(i) to be applied it must be in relation to “personal information relating to a natural person. ”(my emphasis). DAA has made no attempt to justify how this redaction falls into the category of information relating to a natural person, and I think it is clear that it is a commercial entity and therefore article 8(a)(i) cannot be applied.
31. In an email to this Office enclosing the schedule of records, reference was also made to article 9(1)(c) of the AIE Regulations applying to record 4 titled“Dublin Airport PFAS Investigation” . No reference was made to this provision in the decision that was provided to the requestor. In a similar manner to the above, no explanation has been provided as to how the confidentiality of this information is protected by law, how the release of this information would adversely affect the legitimate economic interests of any party or indeed how article 9(1)(c) might apply to this information in any way. Accordingly, I do not find that article 9(1)(c) applies to the withheld name. I direct the release of the redacted information here.
32. Having made this finding, I will now consider whether the fee proposed by DAA is justified having regard to the AIE Regulations and Directive.
Fee applied under article 15(1) of the AIE Regulations
33. Article 5 of the AIE Directive provides:
“1. Access to any public registers or lists established and maintained as mentioned in Article 3(5) and examination in situ of the information requested shall be free of charge.
2. Public authorities may make a charge for supplying any environmental information but such charge shall not exceed a reasonable amount.
3. Where charges are made, public authorities shall publish and make available to applicants a schedule of such charges as well as information on the circumstances in which a charge may be levied or waived.”
34. Article 15(1) of the AIE Regulations broadly transposes article 5 of the AIE Directive and provides as follows:
“15 (1) (a) A public authority may charge a fee when it makes available environmental information in accordance with these Regulations (including when it makes such information available following an appeal to the Commissioner under article 12), provided that such fee shall be reasonable having regard to the Directive.
(b) Notwithstanding sub-article (a), a public authority shall not charge a fee for access to any public registers or lists of environmental information pursuant to article 5(1)(d).
(c) Notwithstanding sub-article (a), a public authority shall not charge a fee for the examination in situ of information requested.
(d) Where an applicant examines information in situ and wishes to obtain copies of that information, a public authority may charge a fee, consistent with the list of fees specified under article 15(2) for the provision of such copies.”
35. The AIE Directive makes it clear that public authorities are entitled to charge a fee for the supply of environmental information provided the fee does not exceed a reasonable amount. Article 5(2) is transposed into national law by article 15(1)(a) of the Regulations which provides that public authorities are entitled to charge a fee so long as the fee is reasonable. The question to be addressed in this first part of the appeal is whether the fee of 20EUR imposed by DAA in this case for the supply of 5 records, is reasonable as per the requirements of article 5(2) of the Directive transposed by article 15(1) of the AIE Regulations.
36. Neither the Directive nor the Regulations define what is“reasonable” in this context, therefore to determine what is meant by“reasonable” I have had regard to the relevant case law. The question of what is reasonable in this context will also encompass the question of what a public authority is and is not permitted to charge for when supplying information.
37. In C-71/14East Sussex County Council v Information Commissioner , the Court of Justice found that all of the factors on the basis of which the amount of the charge is calculated must relate to the actual costs of supplying the requested information. The Court found that this may include the costs attributable to the time spent by the staff of the public authority concerned on answering an individual request for information, including the time spent on searching for the information and putting it in the form required. Paragraph 39 states“The costs of ‘supplying’ environmental information which may be charged under Article 5(2) of Directive 2003/4 encompass not only postal and photocopying costs but also the costs attributable to the time spent by the staff of the public authority concerned on answering an individual request for information, which includes the time spent on searching for the information and putting it in the form required.”
38. Therefore, based onEast Sussex , it is clear that DAA is permitted to take into account the time spent on the search and retrieval of the information when calculating its charge. It is unfortunate that DAA informed the appellant that it intended to charge a fee, not in its fresh decision letter, but in the covering email, stating“In accordance with Article 15 of the AIE Regulations a charge of €20 (for the search, retrieval, and compilation of records) is being applied for this AIE request”.
39. I note there was no schedule of fees included to explain how the charge was calculated in either the decision letter, or the cover email. I also note there was no link or signpost directing the appellant to where information regarding the schedule of fees could be found on DAA website. Firstly, I have considered whether the charge amount itself set by DAA exceeds a reasonable amount.East Sussex found that the expression“reasonable amount” in the AIE Directive does not include any amount that may have a deterrent effect on persons wishing to obtain information or that may restrict their right of access to information.
40. The Court found that“in order to assess whether a charge…has a deterrent effect, account must be taken both of the economic situation of the person requesting the information and of the public interest in the protection of the environment. That assessment cannot therefore relate solely to the person’s economic situation but must also be based on an objective analysis of the amount of the charge. To that extent, the charge must not exceed the financial capacity of the person concerned, nor in any event appear objectively unreasonable” (paragraph 43). Accordingly, I must consider whether the amount charged is objectively reasonable. In response to a request for submissions from this Office, DAA set out the following explanation as to how the fee was calculated:
“Five (records) are proposed for release subject to payment of a 20euro fee. This charge is being levied in respect of the search, retrieval, and compilation of records. Four of these records are emails, and their identification followed a review of inboxes by four different people in daa. Three daa staff members uploaded records to the internal SharePoint – that took thirty minutes. It took a further thirty minutes to compile and convert the emails to PDF and to redact personal information from these emails. The AIE section of daa’s website clearly states that €20 per hour is charged for search, retrieval, compilation and copying of records.”
41. DAA also said, “It took a further thirty minutes to compile and convert the emails to PDF and to redact personal information from these emails ” (my emphasis). It is unclear how much of this 30-minute time frame was spent considering redactions, but in general, I do not consider it reasonable to charge a requester for any significant amount of time spent by a public authority applying exemptions to information that it does not intend to release. As I have set out above, DAA did not justify the redactions it has sought to make in the internal review decision, and did not carry out any public interest balancing test in line with article 10(5) of the AIE Regulations. In light of these significant errors in the internal review decision, I cannot find that the proposed fee is objectively reasonable.
42. Further, to determine whether the charge imposed by DAA in this case has a deterrent effect on the appellant or restricts his right of access to information, account must also be taken of his economic situation. DAA in its correspondence with the appellant said that on its website it gives the following information:“daa may also reduce the fee having regard to the means of the requester (on production of evidence).” It gives no details of what reduction may consist of, or what evidence a requester is required to produce in order to demonstrate their means.
43. The requester in correspondence to DAA on 14 June 2024, enquired about the circumstances in which a fee will be waived, and also stated“If the DAA is unwilling to provide these records without payment of a fee, then I wish to view them in person” (incidentally the DAA said this would not be possible).
44. In response to this, DAA stated:“Regarding your request to view the records in person, please note that we do not hold the proposed released documents printed in situ. As per the schedule of the decision letter sent to you on June 14, 2024, five of the records are Outlook items and one is a PDF, digital documents. For both physical and digital documents, the charge for the search, retrieval, and compilation of records still applies.” Both the AIE Regulations and the Directive specify that the examination of information in-situ shall be free of charge. DAA did not adequately consider the appellant’s request to view the information in-situ, and did not provide any adequate reason as to why this would not be possible. These exchanges should have alerted DAA that the appellant had concerns about the fee being charged, and I cannot see that DAA made any efforts to engage with the appellant to address those concerns. For those reasons I also find that the fee was not reasonable having regard to the circumstances of the case.
Public interest
45. The test set out byEast Sussex also explains that when assessing the reasonableness of the charge“account must be taken… of the public interest in the protection of the environment” . I have considered the public interest in the protection of the environment of the information within the records. The request concerns“the presence of PFAS on airport lands” and relates to interaction between the EPA and DAA on this issue. In general, if there is a high public interest, this may call into doubt the reasonableness of the charge. The subject matter of the information suggests that it may have wider public value beyond the complainant’s own immediate interest. I note that considerable time and resources have been expended by DAA in addressing the issues of PFAS on DAA lands. A[external-link https://www.dublinairport.com/docs/default-source/sustainability-reports/daa-publishes-results-of-two-year-pfas-risk-assessment---statement-april-2024.pdf?sfvrsn=e0e3884b6 | report ] published by DAA in April 2024 states “daa has had ongoing engagement with the relevant authorities, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Fingal County Council (FCC). Both the regulatory frameworks, and the availability of remediation technologies that can help Document Classification: Class 1 - General address this issue, are evolving rapidly as understanding of PFAS grows at a national and international level. daa welcomes the support and input of regulatory authorities in working together to tackle this important issue. As one of the first organisations in Ireland actively working to address PFAS, daa hopes that the comprehensive data being made public today enhances the understanding of the potential scale of this issue across Ireland on sites where PFAS-firefighting foam has been used historically, and what might be done to address it.”_
46. An article published in the Irish Times on 10 April 2024 notes that PFAS have been linked to human health issues including cancers and infertility. Therefore having regard to the subject matter of the request I consider that the public interest in the release of this information is particularly high. From the information already published, it is clear to me that DAA are aware of the high public interest in this subject. DAA has made no arguments to persuade me otherwise, and in fact has made no reference as to whether it took into account the public interest in the information when determining the fee. On balance I consider the public interest of the information in this appeal is at a level as to render the fee of 20EUR proposed by DAA unreasonable.
47. In conclusion with the regard to the proposed fee, I find that DAA a) sought to charge for incorrectly withholding information under article 8(a)(i) of the AIE Regulations, b) failed to correctly consider the appellant's request to view the information sought in-situ given that the AIE Regulations and Directive specifically state that there shall be no charge for the examination of information in-situ and c) failed to consider the high public interest in the release of the information sought when considering whether to charge a fee in this case.
48. For these reasons I am not persuaded that the fee imposed by DAA is reasonable having regard to the test set out by East Sussex to determine whether the charge imposed has a deterrent effect on persons wishing to obtain the information and that DAA has not acted in accordance with article 5(2) of the AIE Directive and article 15(1) of the AIE Regulations.
49. For the reasons set out above, I find that DAA has failed to correctly apply article 15(1) of the AIE Regulations when charging a fee, and has failed to provide reasons to justify withholding information under article 8(a)(i) and article 9(1)(C) of the AIE Regulations.
50. Having carried out a review under article 12(5) of the AIE Regulations, I annul DAA’s decision (including the fee) and direct release of the information sought.
51. 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.
Ger Deering
Commissioner for Environmental Information