B Solicitors, on behalf of client X and The National Roads Authority

During the course of this review two meetings were held between this Office and representatives of the NRA to discuss the NRA's decision and to clarify the records which are subject to the FOI request. A meeting was also held with representatives of X. In conducting my review, I have had regard to details of the submissions of, and meetings with, the NRA, to correspondence between the applicant and the NRA, to correspondence between this Office and the applicant and to the meeting between X and this Office. I have also had regard to the provisions of the FOI Act.

The issue in this review is whether the NRA was justified in its decision to refuse access to the records sought on the basis of the exemptions it claimed.

During the course of this review the NRA provided this Office with a copy, on 3 CDs, of the records it holds in regard to this matter. There is a considerable number of records on the CDs and many have numerous attachments. A sample of records were viewed by this Office during the course of this review. The records on the CDs are held in an unstructured format, categorised by date and type and not by subject. There is no discernible index or schedule of the records contained on the CDs.

The role of the Information Commissioner in this matter is to review the decision of the NRA, not to act as the first instance decision maker or to become an arbitrator between the two parties in dispute. I consider it is not the role of this Office to trawl through the unscheduled records in this case in an effort to consider whether the NRA's decision was justified.

Given the circumstances outlined above, it is relevant to reiterate the provision of section 8(4) of the FOI Act which expressly provides that decision makers shall, subject to the provisions of the FOI Act, disregard any reasons that the requester has for making a request. It seems clear that the requester's reasons for making the FOI request was at the centre of the decision by the NRA and the approach adopted by the NRA in refusing all the records sought, apparently without any significant consideration of individual record content.