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High Court dismisses statutory appeal against decision of the Information Commissioner upholding a refusal of a Freedom of Information request, on the grounds that: (a) "work” in the relevant statutory provision did not mean only work involved in the discharge of the statutory functions of the body processing the request; (b) the term "unreasonable” must be given its natural or ordinary meaning within the constraints of the statutory scheme, that is, having regard to the fact that the purpose of a request cannot be considered in making an assessment; (c) a mere reference to “voluminous requests” did not lead to the conclusion that the respondent had erred; and (d) there was an ample evidential basis for the respondent's decision.
Statutory appeal on a point of law pursuant to Freedom of Information Act 2014 - challenge to respondent's upholding of a decision of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to refuse a request to access certain records relating to the first appellant on the basis of s.15(1)(c), which provides for exemption where processing request would cause substantial and unreasonable interference with or disruption of the work of the body processing the request - standard of review to be applied on a statutory appeal under s. 24 - County Council had estimated that a huge number of files would be encompassed in appellants' request for release of documents and that the hours required would cause unreasonable interference and disruption - respondent found that County Council was justified in so deciding - whether respondent made error of law in failing to correctly interpret the concept of “work” - whether appellants' pleas on interpretation of "work were admissible - whether respondent wrongly interpreted the concept of “unreasonableness” - whether reference to “voluminous requests” in the challenged decision demonstrated that respondent erred in focusing only on volume of records and not on unreasonableness of any interference or disruption of work - whether there was no or no sufficient evidence before the respondent that the request would cause a substantial and unreasonable interference with or disruption of work.
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