Mr. Gavin Sheridan and Central Bank of Ireland

• Case Number: CEI/11/0001
• Decision Date: 26 March 2012
• Issuer: Central Bank of Ireland
• Applied Rules: , European Communities (Access to Information on the Environment) Regulations, 2007
• Court: Commissioner for Environmental Information

Mr. Gavin Sheridan and Central Bank of Ireland

From Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information (OCEI)

Case number: CEI/11/0001

Published on 26 March 2012

Appeal to the Commissioner for Environmental Information

European Communities (Access to Information on the Environment) Regulations 2007 (S.I. No. 133 of 2007)

Appellant: Mr. Gavin Sheridan

Public Authority: Central Bank of Ireland (the Bank)

Whether the Bank was justified in refusing access to certain items of information relating to mileage claims on the ground that the information concerned is not environmental information within the meaning of the Access to Information on the Environment (AIE) Regulations

Summary of Commissioner's Decision

In accordance with Article 12(5) of the AIE Regulations, the Commissioner reviewed the decision of the Bank and found that it was justified in refusing access to the information concerned on the ground that it is not environmental information within the meaning of the Regulations. She affirmed the decision of the Bank accordingly.

Background

The appellant made a request to the Bank, dated 30 November 2010, seeking access under the AIE Regulations to the following information:

• a data dump (export/copy) of all flight expenditure as recorded by the Central Bank from January 2005 to October 2010 inclusive; and
• a data dump (export/copy) of all mileage claims as recorded by the Central Bank from January 2005 to October 2010 inclusive.

Following contacts with this Office, the appellant agreed on 13 January 2012 to confine his request to a datadump (export/copy) of all mileage claims as recorded by the Central Bank from January 2010 to October 2010 (without prejudice to future requests for older data).

The Bank refused the appellant's request on the basis that the requested information was not "environmental information" within the meaning of the AIE Regulations. On 10 January 2011, the appellant appealed to my Office against the Bank's decision.

The Bank made a submission dated 21 February 2012 in support of its decision. The Bank also initially provided a partial travel spreadsheet for 2010 for the purposes of my review, but it maintained its position that the information therein did not fall within the ambit of the AIE Regulations. Subsequently, however, the Bank agreed to provide my Office with a complete travel spreadsheet for 2010 on a compact disc.

After seeking clarification regarding certain items of information in the complete spreadsheet, my Investigator took the view that, in the context of this case, the information appearing in the columns under the following headings was environmental information: Mode of Transport, KM per trip, Date Outward, and Date Return. The Bank ultimately accepted my Investigator's view of the matter and released the relevant information to the appellant on 24 February 2012.

The appellant maintains that the entirety of the database of travel information is environmental information and thus subject to release under the AIE Regulations. He has made submissions in support of his position on 6 January 2012 and 2 March 2012, respectively. In the circumstances, and having had regard to the submissions of both parties in this case, I have decided to bring the matter to conclusion by way of a formal, binding decision.

Scope of Review

Following her examination of the complete travel spreadsheet for 2010, my Investigator informed the appellant that the headings include: Destination; Date Outward; Date Return; Mode of Transport; Purpose of Journey; Details; Motor Expenses Y/N; KM per Trip; Mileage €; Expenses €; Final Cost of Travel €. In his submission dated 2 March 2012, the appellant notes that my Investigator was "silent regarding the remainder of the information on the disc". He states: "It is my expectation the the entirety of the information be considered by the Commissioner in making her determination and not just a subset of it." However, as noted above, the appellant agreed on 13 January 2012 to confine his request to mileage claims. My Investigator confirmed the terms of the revised request in writing. The other information in the complete spreadsheet relates to such matters as flights, hotels, subsistence, and other expenses that are not related to mileage claims and therefore do not fall within the scope of the appellant's revised request.

The issue before me is whether the information in the spreadsheet relating to mileage claims, apart from the information which has already been released by the Bank, is environmental information within the meaning of the AIE Regulations.

Definition of "environmental information"

The AIE Regulations are based on Directive 2003/4/EC. In line with Article 2(1) of the Directive, Article 3(1) of the AIE Regulations defines "environmental information" as

"any information in written, visual, aural, electronic or any other material form on-

(a) the state of the elements of the environment, such as air and atmosphere, water, soil, land, landscape and natural sites . . . and the interaction among these elements,

(b) factors, such as substances, energy, noise, radiation or waste, including radioactive waste, emissions, discharges and other releases into the environment, affecting or likely to affect the elements of the environment,

(c) measures (including administrative measures), such as policies, legislation, plans, programmes, environmental agreements, and activities affecting or likely to affect the elements and factors referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b) as well as measures or activities designed to protect those elements,

(d) reports on the implementation of environmental legislation,

(e) cost benefit and other economic analyses and assumptions used other economic analyses and assumptions used within the framework of the measures and activities referred to in paragraph (c), and

(f) the state of human health and safety ... conditions of human life, cultural sites and built structures ...affected by the state of the elements of the environment...or through those elements, by any of the matters referred to in paragraphs (b) and (c)".

The Bank's Position

The basis for the appellant's request, as stated originally to the Bank and in his internal review application, is that the information sought relates to emissions into the environment. He contended that the items of information in the database requested are factors affecting or likely to affect the elements of the environment and also measures affecting or likely to affect the elements and factors in paragraphs (a) and (b) of the environmental information definition.

In responding to the appellant's contention, the Bank has emphasised that the request actually relates to details of expenditures. The Bank states: "Such expenditures are not environmental information as they contain no data about emissions generated in the course of . . . journeys or other environmental factors. Instead, this data are part of the financial records of the Central Bank."

The Appellant's Position

During the course of the review, my Investigator had regard to the judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Glawischnig v. Bundesminister für soziale Sicherheit und Generationen, Case-316/01 (12 June 2003), which is discussed below. She accepted that travel may involve environmental factors such as emissions. She therefore considered that official travel, especially by car or plane, may be an activity within the meaning of paragraph (c) of the environmental information definition in that it affects or is likely to affect the elements or factors referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b) of the definition. However, she observed that activities only come within the scope of the definition by virtue of their direct or indirect link to an impact on the elements of the environment. In the circumstances, she considered that information on an activity must reflect the link to the environmental impact of the activity in order to fall within the ambit of paragraph (c).

In his response to my Investigator's view, the appellant says that he agrees that "Glawischnig is precedent" in the context of the environmental information definition. He therefore accepts that the definition "excludes information with only a minimal connection to the environment". However, he considers that "Glawischnig does not provide any assistance on how to determine whether the connection with the factors or elements of the environment is minimal or not since in that case the information requested [relating to food labelling under a statutory scheme] was clearly not included in the relevant category of information which was limited at that time to measures to protect the environment". He also considers that my Investigator has "not set out an objective basis or framework for determining the link between a piece of information and the environment so that this link is more than minimal and so should be considered as environmental information". He refers to the "framework for this analysis" that he proposed in his previous submission.

In his previous submission, dated 6 January 2012, the appellant suggested that, where activities affect environmental factors and/or elements, information on the activities is included in the definition of environmental information "unless there is a minimal connection between the information and those activities". Thus, he stated: "Environmental Information may be on an activity that affects a factor or element and not necessarily on the factor or element that is affected by that activity (for example a factor may be emissions generated by the activity of air transport but it is the...