These are the agendas and minutes of the so-called Senior Officials Group, a key part of the government’s pandemic response.
We first sought these records back in early June but access was refused using the section of the FOI Act exempting records relating to the Cabinet.
We appealed that case on the basis that these records were not solely prepared for transaction of business at Cabinet.
In his decision, the Information Commissioner ruled in our favour saying: “The minutes reflect that the Group is engaged with dealing with the many practical aspects of responding to and seeking to contain and mitigate the pandemic’s wide impact on the country and the relevant records document and facilitate that work. In the circumstances, I am not satisfied that section 28(1)(c) applies.”
You can see them in full here. We have since sought a more recent set of the same records from the Department of the Taoiseach.