Ms Emily O'Reilly:

I believe it was in the hundreds and would not have been in the thousands. It was of piece of public consultation by the Commission. What I believe is important are the kinds of people and the sectors which did respond to us. There were many NGOs involved in this and which take a deep interest in it. Again, as I have said, we are analysing this and we will have the results out. I believe we will find perhaps a certain frustration in respect of accessing environmental information.

Certainly, the Aarhus Convention is far more liberal in respect of the release of documents when it comes to emissions, for example, or other climate matters but sometimes administrations choose to see the more restrictive FOI Act approach, rather than the Aarhus Convention and the Acts which emerged from that,including our own environmental regulations, which are much more liberal and make it incumbent on the administrations to release many more documents than would be the case if it was an issue being tested or requested under FOI legislation. We will probably find that reflected in the responses we get.