Decision
Mr. X and The Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration
From Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC)
Case number: OIC-154461-X1C7Z0
Published on
From Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC)
Case number: OIC-154461-X1C7Z0
Published on
Whether the Department was justified in refusing access, under section 15(1)(a) of the FOI Act, to various records relating to procurement information, invoices and consent regarding leasing of a premises to the Department, on the ground that no further records other than those already released exist or can be found
27 February 2026
The applicant in this case was represented by a solicitor during the course of the review and therefore all references to communications with the applicant in this decision should be taken to include communications with the applicant’s solicitor where appropriate.
Following exchange of correspondence between the parties and this Office, the applicant submitted a refined request to the Department of Children, Disability and Equality (formerly the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth) on 20 November 2024 for details of all and any payments made pertaining to his property from 1 July 2022 to date to include procurement information, invoices, correspondence with the property tenant and compliance information in particular in respect to the consent of the Landlord to the Leasing of the property.
On 10 December 2024, the Department issued its effective position, in which it granted partial access to 23 records. On 12 December 2024, the applicant sought a review of the Department’s decision on the basis that he had not received records dated after February 2023.
On 17 June 2025, the Department informed this Office that under the transfer of Governmental functions, the International Protection Procurement Service had transferred to the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration (the Department). This Office engaged with that Department concerning the review thereafter.
During the course of the review and following engagements with this Office, the Department located seven additional records it deemed to come within the scope of the request and it granted partial access to those records. It indicated that no further relevant records could be located.
I have now completed my review in accordance with section 22(2) of the FOI Act. In carrying out my review, I have had regard to the correspondence outlined above, and to the correspondence between this Office and both parties on the matter. I have decided to conclude this review by way of a formal, binding decision.
During the course of the review, the applicant confirmed that he was not seeking a review of the material redacted from the released records. I will therefore give no further consideration to those records.
The Department’s position is that it has, at this stage, released all relevant records coming within the scope of the request. The Department’s position essentially comprises a refusal to grant access to any further relevant records under section 15(1)(a) of the FOI Act, which provides for the refusal of a request where the records sought do not exist or cannot be found. Accordingly, this review is concerned solely with whether the Department was justified in refusing access, under section 15(1)(a) of the FOI Act, to any additional records relating to leasing of the applicant’s property on the basis that no further records exist or can be found after all reasonable steps were undertaken to ascertain their whereabouts.
Section 15(1)(a) of the FOI Act provides for the refusal of a request where the records sought do not exist or cannot be found after all reasonable steps to ascertain their whereabouts have been taken. Our role in a case such as this is to review the decision of the FOI body and to decide whether that decision was justified. This means that I must have regard to the evidence available to the decision maker and the reasoning used by the decision maker in arriving at their decision and also must assess the adequacy of the searches conducted by the FOI body in looking for relevant records. The evidence in “search” cases generally consists of the steps actually taken to search for the records along with miscellaneous and other information about the record management practices of the FOI body, insofar as those practices relate to the records in question.
In his submission to this Office, the applicant said he was not satisfied with the Department’s decision. He said that the information provided was cut off circa February 2023 and that he needed records up to October 2024 when he had revised his FOI request. He further said there were no accounts provided by Department.
The Department said in its submissions that at the time the FOI request was submitted on 11 April 2024, the International Protection function was the responsibility of the then Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. It said the records sought by the applicant related to the procurement of a property by the International Protection Procurement Service (IPPS) two years prior in 2022. It said that due to the time which had passed between the request and the procurement process referenced, two key individuals from IPPS had since moved on from their roles, and one had left the Department entirely.
The Department said that in order to carry out a thorough search and retrieval process, it sent a search and retrieval request to IPPS, to the former Principal Officer (PO) who was in that role during the procurement process, and to the Ukraine Division, as it understood that Division had been involved in this process. It said that the Ukraine Division never progressed the procurement process with the location in question, and confirmed that all relevant records would be held by IPPS.
The Department said the Assistant Principal Officer (AP), who was the lead on the particular procurement, had since left employment with the Department and it could not contact the individual to arrange a search of his own records. It said that to ensure a thorough search, it sought permission from the Department of Children, Disability and Equality Human Resource section to approach its Information Communications and Technology (ICT) team with a view to accessing the AP’s old email account. It said that the request was granted after some time, and following engagement with its ICT team, it was granted access to the former AP’s account. It said that searches carried out included:
• Enquiries with the IPPS team
• Enquiries with the former IPPS PO
• A search of the former IPPS AP’s archived mailbox
• A search of the Department’s electronic filing system
The Department said the majority of the records identified were located following a search of the former AP’s archived mailbox. It said the former PO submitted records to it, however the majority of these records were already found following the search of the AP’s archived mailbox. It said the IPPS team did not hold any records, as the relevant staff were not in situ at the time of the procurement. It said that the Ukraine team confirmed that all procurement was carried out by IPPS. The Department said that its search of its electronic file system (eDocs) returned no relevant records. It said that a number of search terms were used in the eDocs and archived mailbox. It noted a manual search of the archived mailbox was also carried out around the period in question
The Department said that it notes some invoices were not located during the initial search and retrieval process as they did not exist in the relevant inboxes/filing systems within the International Protection and Integration Division. It said that a subsequent search was carried out within the Department of Children, Disability and Equality finance unit, and the additional invoices were located and provided to the applicant. It said that its decision maker ensured that all reasonable steps to locate records were taken. It said all relevant staff carried out searches, all relevant mailboxes (including archived mailboxes) were searched and all electronic filing systems were searched. It said that no physical records were maintained by IPPS and eDocs was the Department’s only filing system during the period in question.
The Department said it has no reason to believe any records were destroyed in accordance with policy or otherwise. It said that given the extensive steps taken during the search and retrieval process the Department is satisfied that no further records exist.
The Office’s Investigator provided the applicant with details of the Department’s submissions and invited him to comment. The applicant did not provide any response to this invitation.
The Office’s investigator sought further clarification from the Department on the matter of records concerning the applicant’s consent to leasing of the property in question. The Department said that with respect to records requested by the applicant concerning consent, it is the responsibility of the accommodation provider to ensure that they have the required consent/permission/license to provide the services on a premises being offered to the Department. It said that it cannot search for such records as this is not a function of the Department. The Department said that all payments were issued by the Department of Children, Disability and Equality to the tenant of the property in question and that these payments ceased in May 2023 as it had initiated a termination clause in the contract.
The Office’s Investigator sought further confirmation concerning the copies of Invoices released to the applicant with the original FOI decision and during this review. The Department contacted the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth for a report detailing all financial transactions concerning the premises in question. Subsequently, the Department provided this Office with a Financial Management System report detailing all transactions. After a comparison of the report and records, the Office’s Investigator was able to confirm all Invoices corresponding to the transactions were released to the applicant.
The question I must consider is whether the Department has, at this stage, taken all reasonable steps to ascertain the whereabouts of relevant records. Having regard to the details of its submissions and to the additional searches undertaken during the course of the review, I am satisfied that it has. I appreciate that the applicant appears to be of the view that further relevant records should exist concerning procurement information, invoices and compliance information in respect of landlord’s consent to the leasing of the premises. However, we do not generally expect FOI bodies to carry out extensive or indefinite general searches for records simply because an applicant asserts that records sought ought to exist.
Having regard to the evidence before me, and in the absence of any evidence to suggest that further specific searches might be warranted, I find that the Department has, at this stage, taken all reasonable steps to locate the records sought by the applicant and that it has adequately explained why no further records exist or can be found. Accordingly, I find that the Department was justified in refusing access to further relevant records under section 15(1)(a) of the FOI Act on the basis that no such records exist or can be found after all reasonable steps to ascertain their whereabouts have been taken.
Having carried out a review under section 22(2) of the FOI Act, I hereby affirm the Department’s decision to refuse access, under section 15(1)(a) of the FOI Act, to any further records held by the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration relating to the applicant’s property and an application to lease the property to the Department of Children, Disability and Equality, on the ground that no further relevant records exist.
Section 24 of the FOI Act sets out detailed provisions for an appeal to the High Court by a party to a review, or any other person affected by the decision. In summary, such an appeal, normally on a point of law, must be initiated not later than four weeks after notice of the decision was given to the person bringing the appeal.
Stephen Rafferty
Senior Investigator