IDA Ireland takes legal action against Information Commissioner over FoI decision

IDA Ireland is taking legal action against the Information Commissioner to appeal a Freedom of Information (FoI) decision to release survey results from multinational companies to a journalist.

The State’s inward investment agency served High Court papers on Tuesday in case that flows from a FoI request from journalist Ken Foxe for a 100-page client survey carried that it carried out in 2019.

The agency has dealings with some 1,600 international business groups with Irish operations, among major global corporations such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

Given high levels of employment in such companies and rising corporation tax payments, their views on business performance and policy matters are closely tracked by the IDA and the Government.

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IDA twice refused access to most of the survey report on the basis that the material was subject to internal deliberations and commercially sensitive. It also said release would not in the State’s financial and economic interests.

But Mr Foxe successfully appealed those rulings to the Office of Information Commissioner, which said the report should be released in full.

Now IDA has gone the High Court in an attempt to block the release of the document. “IDA has appealed a decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner as provided for under the FoI Acts,” a spokesman said in response to questions. “As this matter is before the courts, IDA will not making further comment.”

Non-specific nature

There was no comment on Wednesday on the case from the Information Commissioner’s office as it had not received case papers. In its decision paper on Mr Foxe’s appeal, the office said the IDA report included collated survey results and data derived from the responses of senior personnel in a range of client companies. No companies were identified.

The agency had argued that the survey was important for the formulation its response to global business matters, the impact of the Brexit, the pandemic and global tax reform.

“The IDA also argued that the information in the client survey is relevant to the formation of Government policy on matters such as business competitiveness, infrastructure needs, regional investment, availability of skills for certain sectors and the tax policy of the State.”

Still, the Information Commissioner’s office rejected the argument that the access should be refused on deliberative grounds.

The IDA also argued that the survey contained client financial and commercial information, including data relating to companies’ financial position, markets, marketing strategies and information on business challenges and growth plans.

However, the Information Commissioner’s office said there was no information whose release might cause harm. Because of its non-specific nature and the fact that particular groups were not named it said the survey could not be said to be commercially sensitive.