Roscommon County Council has been ordered to re-examine a request to grant access to an environmental group seeking information on discussions about flood relief works at lough Funshinagh.
The Commissioner for Environmental Information has granted an appeal made by an environmental group examining correspondence between senior Council executives and government bodies such as the OPW on across various dates in 2021.
However, the Council considered the request too large to process and despite a refinement of the request, it was refused and an internal review also affirmed the decision not to release the information as it was 'manifestly unreasonable.
They claimed it may take 16-20 people to carry out an average of five hours each to identify records and processing of the request could take up to 60 hours.
The decision was then appealed to the office of the CEI which claimed the Council had failed to show in detail the impact of searching and processing the request would have on its functions.
It has now ordered the Council to carry out a fresh decision making process on the request.
