Category: FOIs

Department refusals for 2008 era records

We were interested to see the story in the Sunday Independent today by Danny McConnell that utilised the newly available 5 year rule under the new FOI Act. We have also been attempting to use the new Act to obtain 2008/2009 documents. Below is an outright refusal, which we will be appealing (the decision maker fails to understand the difference between Cabinet statements and Cabinet discussions).



Irish Water board meeting minutes

These are the board minutes of Irish Water for July through to mid October 2014. Apologies for the poor quality of the documents, but this is how I received them. Redactions were applied (whited out) to entire swathes of the minutes, using commercial sensitivity as the main exemption.



US State Department Eksund / Libya Cables

These US State Department cables detail US perspectives of Libya as related to Ireland in the mid to late 1980s. They also detail the events around the capture of the Eksund, a ship bound for Ireland carrying arms from Libya, intercepted by the French in 1987.

The document contains cables from US Embassy Dublin, Embassy London, Embassy Paris, Embassy Rome and others. It includes an inventory of the arms found aboard the Eksund.



Trichet letter leaked

Good morning. The letter this blog has been pursuing access to since 2011 has finally been published.

We pursued the letter because we believe the Irish public, and indeed the European public, have a fundamental right to access information, and be informed about decisions being made on their behalf. We believe access to information to be a fundamental right guaranteed by the European treaties, the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 10) and by UN treaties.

We sought to vindicate those rights by seeking a letter we believed to be of enormous public interest. The public’s right to know is fundamental to functioning democracies. Without access to information, the public lives in darkness. Information is the oxygen of healthy democracies. Governments and public bodies hold a monopoly on information, and this monopoly needs to be challenged – always, tirelessly, and forever.

Gavin Sheridan & Fred Logue.

The original request thread.
Our submission to the EU Ombudsman
The result of our appeal to the Irish Information Commissioner.

ECB agrees to review Trichet letter release

In light of comments made by ECB Governing Council member Patrick Honohan in the book on Brian Lenihan I recently resubmitted my request for access to the letter that had previously been refused to this blog by ECB President Mario Draghi.

I see today RTE is reporting that MEP Sean Kelly has also been seeking access to the letter.

On October 7, I sent a new access to information request to the ECB, again seeking the letter. We said:

…In a previous appeal to the EU Ombudsman and to Mr Draghi, access
to this document was refused. However new information has now come
to light.

It was reported this week that ECB Governing Council Member Patrick
Honohan has contributed to a book in which he outlines information
related to the contents of the November 19 letter. In the book he
says:

“The Troika staff told Brian in categorical terms that burning the
bondholders would mean no programme and, accordingly, could not be
countenanced,” Dr Honohan writes. “For whatever reason, they waited
until after this showdown to inform me of this decision, which had
apparently been taken at a very high-level teleconference to which
no Irish representative was invited.” –

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/revealed-the-troika-threats-to-bankrupt-ireland-30621197.html

In light of the fact that an ECB council member has chosen to
publicly express the views being argued by the Troika at that time,
it now appears – given that the eurozone has not collapsed – that
release of the letter is not in fact a threat to the stability of
the eurozone. I can no longer see any reason why it should not be
released immediately in the public interest.

Yours faithfully,

On October 15, the ECB responded. They said:

Dear Mr Sheridan,

As you will be aware, the ECB President mentioned in his communication to
the European Ombudsman in March this year that the Governing Council
made a commitment to re-evaluate the disclosure of the letter dated 19
November 2010 from Mr Trichet to Mr Lenihan at a “more advanced stage of
the post-programme surveillance”. The completion of the so-called
Comprehensive Assessment (CA) exercise by end-October would provide such
an opportunity to review the stance taken to date on the disclosure of
this letter in light of the outcome of the thorough review of the largest
banks’ balance sheets.

Against this backdrop and in view of the fact that the Governing Council
in all likelihood will re-evaluate the disclosure of the above-mentioned
letter in the course of November, I wanted to check with you whether it
would be acceptable for you that we keep your request on hold until
this reassessment has been concluded. Should it turn out, for whatever
reason, that such a re-evaluation could not be feasibly undertaken during
next month, I would, of course, inform you accordingly and we would
proceed with the formal assessment of your request in line with the ECB’s
Decision on public access to ECB documents.

Please let us know if the above is agreeable to you.

Many thanks & best regards,
Roman Schremser
Senior Adviser
DG Secretariat

I responded that I am happy to wait until November 30, 2014. We will see what happens.

Garda report into Swedish House Mafia concert 2012

Thanks to Mark Tighe at the Sunday Times (Ireland) here is a copy of the Garda report into the Phoenix Parks concerts in July 2012. It was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act 1997/2003 following an appeal to the Office of the Information Commissioner. The report came about because of a controversy surrounding policing at the events.

His story on the report can be read on the Sunday Times website here (€)

This is the Information Commissioner’s decision in relation to the case.