We have word this afternoon that NAMA has decided to appeal the decision of the High Court in February 2013 which upheld the decision by the Commissioner of Environmental Information, Emily O’Reilly, to designate NAMA as a public body. That judgment meant that NAMA was subject to environment information requests which would provide a modicum of transparency in the Agency to the general public.
Gavin Sheridan at TheStory.ie has confirmed that NAMA is appealing the decision, and is, in addition seeking a stay on the High Court judgment which would mean that environmental information requests would not be permissible until the Supreme Court had held the appeal. As Gavin says, such appeals are taking in the region of four years – seriously four years, no wonder judges are concerned about resources and the reputation of the State.
Tomorrow morning at 10.30am, Judge Mac Eochaidh is set to decide if he will impose a stay pending the outcome of the appeal. Gavin will be attending in person; NAMA is [AMENDED] making oral submissions. Judge Mac Eochaidh has a mixed history on transparency, he approved Paddy McKillen’s recent application for an injunction stopping the Sunday Times printing a story about him, but he was also the barrister whose advertisement in the 1990s started the planning corruption tribunals.
The position on here remains skeptical as to the value of information that can be obtained under environmental information requests, but such requests can have unintended consequences. NAMA has spent €120,000 on resisting the Information Commissioner’s decision, originally given in 2011.
Previously, finance minister Michael Noonan claimed his hands were tied when it came to influencing NAMA’s consideration of lodging an appeal. This was at the same time as we were learning that Minister Noonan had directed NAMA to make a €1bn credit line available to the utterly bust IBRC!
If the judge tomorrow refuses the stay, then we might finally be free to submit environment information requests to NAMA. If not, then the whole matter, for all intents and purposes, dies because by 2017, information requests at NAMA might not be very helpful in terms of influencing its future actions.
UPDATE: 17th April, 2013. Gavin Sheridan has reported on this morning’s proceedings on his TheStory.ie website which also includes a copy of his submission read to the court. The upshot is that Judge Mac Eochaidh has reserved judgment until Friday morning, 19th April 2013.
NAMA Wine Lake 
It is the attitude and the arrogance towards anyone seeking disclosure of information that tells the real story. Are they also not appealing the Bewley’s successful High Court challenge to the UORR. Judge Colm Mac Eochaidh will probably put them in their place tomorrow.
any estimate about the costs to nama of complying with such a request? may be more cost effective to appeal it rather than having to dedicate some staff to trawling through and assembling all this data? Is there any point where transparency becomes an impediment to nama doing the job?
@BB, are you suggesting NAMA or any other state agency would be nefarious enough to weigh the cost of complying with a court judgment with the cost of appealing. Well, at least it might demonstrate a commercial acumen at NAMA that some have accused it of not having!
just trying to apply some logic – i’m sure they don’t enjoy headlines such as the title of this post, so i assume they aren’t doing it “for the craic”
Unfortunately, even if Mac Eochaidh doesn’t give them a stay, then the Supreme Court is likely to. What a farcical waste of time and resources.
Just tell me what you want to know. next time they sue me in the USA I’ll get all the info through discovery! They really do not have a consistent approach as to how it is best to remain a secret organisation, do they? The one thing they continually agree on is blowing a fortune on legal fees, regardless of the likely outcome.
The plaintiff in this case can ask for an expediated hearing in the Supreme Court, I wonder if Nama will fail to join with requesting an expediated hearing so that they can hide all the dirt for four years. Surely they would not be THAT transparent?
It’s likely the Supreme Court will give this appeal priority, given it is clearly a matter of public interest, and crucial that the High Court judgment is not rendered ineffective for four years until the Supreme Court upholds the decision, And I say “until”, we have seen enough common sense decisions from this Supreme Court so far to know they are going to uphold this totally common sense and correct ruling.
Unfortunately, the sheer volume of cases being appealed to the Supreme Court means that it will need to be pretty much a matter of life and death to get a priority hearing for the forseeable future; http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/court-forced-to-turn-away-cases-as-appeals-soar-29078983.html