Information Commissioner Peter Tyndall has said that the Central Bank is not complying with Freedom of Information legislation.
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2014, the Central Bank became a partially included agency, though records containing certain confidential commercial information were excluded.
Speaking at the launch of the Office of the Information Commissioner's Annual report, Mr Tyndall said his office disagreed with the bank's interpretation of the Act.
Mr Tyndall said the Central Bank held the view that the Act did not apply to any record containing a piece of such information, and that the Office of the Commissioner had no right to review the bank's decision to decline a request for any such record.
Mr Tyndall said that it is his Office's view that this is a breach of the legislation, and that the Central Policy Unit in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform agreed.
"We've had great difficulty in dealing with the Central Bank over the extent of our jurisdiction," Mr Tyndall said, "I'm sorry that we've reached this point. We know what the legislation is and we will have to make a determination on that point."
Mr Tyndall said that his office "regrettably" had to draw attention to difficulties with the Department of Justice over several years and it was looking to see "a serious improvement in the year ahead."
"We understand that there are issues around the security of the State, there are issues around the criminal law and so on, which mean that there is certain information which should not properly be subject to Freedom of Information, but I think what we tend to see is a blanket approach, rather than considering each application on its merits." Mr Tyndall said.
Central Bank claims it is not in breach of legislation
In response, the Central Bank of Ireland said it was not breaching the FOI legislation and it had made all relevant records available to the Office of the Information Commissioner.
It said that the issue was "one of a legal interpretation of Schedule 1 of the Act".
The Central Bank says its legal advice is that all records containing any commercially sensitive as set out in Schedule 1 of the Act fall outside of the Act.
It also maintains that decisions to refuse FOI requests for records containing such information are outside of the jurisdiction of the Office of the Information Commissioner's review process.
However, according to a spokesperson, in order to resolve the mater the Bank is "voluntarily submitting" to the Office of the Information Commissioner's review process.
A statement from the Office of the Information Commissioner said that it was unacceptable that there should be any uncertainty in relation to the Commissioner's jurisdiction to review the Central Bank's decisions.
Mr Tyndall said his office was also working with bodies that are new to Freedom of Information since 2014 to help them to understand what their new responsibilities are, however he added that it was "fair to say that there will continue to be teething problems".
Mr Tyndall also said that the resourcing of Freedom of Information within public service providers and Government Departments is something that needed to be properly addressed.
In 2015, the Office issued five notices to four public bodies for failing to comply with the requirement to provide it with relevant information.
Two notices were issued to the national child and family agency Tusla, one was issued to St James' Hospital, one was issued to South Dublin County Council and one was issued to the National Sports Campus Development Authority.
Mr Tyndall said that following Tusla's separation from the HSE, the situation of managing FOI requests was not properly dealt with, and his office was working with Tusla to improve that, and he acknowledged that requests made to Tusla were often complex.
Tusla and the HSE also accounted for half of all requests that were deemed refused in the absence of a decision being at both original and internal review stage.
In relation to the removal of fees for FOI requests, Mr Tyndall said that while the workload this had created had caused unease amongst bodies subject to the Act, he hoped the absence of fees was here to stay.
According to the Annual Report Irish Water saw a five-fold increase in FOI requests, up from 88 requests in 2014 to 461 in 2015.
Mr Tyndall said his office would have to make a determination on the date from which Irish Water's records would be eligible for release.
Mr Tyndall said that it was the view of the Central Policy Unit at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform that access to records was limited to after it was set up on 17 July 2013.
This would leave records that existed prior to this, and which were subject to FOI when they were under the control of local authorities', ineligible to be released under an FOI request now that they were held by Irish Water.
Mr Tyndall said his office expected to receive requests for such documents and it would have to make a determination on the matter.
