Departmental Data

Tuesday, 28 April 2026

Questions (451)

Roderic O'Gorman

Question:

451. Deputy Roderic O'Gorman asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation the number of open cases currently with the Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information; the average time for cases to be decided; the number of cases currently with the office for two years or more; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29588/26]

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Written answers

Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation

Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information (OCEI)

No of cases currently on hand	Average time for cases to be decided	No of cases currently on hands for 2 years or more
435	The majority of cases are over 12 months old before a decision issues.*	210

*Unfortunately OCEI is not able to provide a more accurate average closure timeframe at the moment. OCEI is, however, putting in place a new case management system which may allow it to provide this information in future.

The Commissioner for Environmental Information is a statutorily independent Office Holder. The OCEI publishes an Annual Review of its activities for the year in which detailed information and commentary is provided on OCEI casework. You may wish to note that in Chapter 2 of OCEI’s Annual Review for 2024 (www.ocei.ie/pdf/?file=https://assets.ocei.ie/media/278521/4426fe9c-e742-4ca4-97ab-be8e19187c81.pdf#page=null), OCEI set out some of the issues which impact on the timeliness of its decision-making.