Supreme Court reserves judgment in Nama appeal

The Supreme Court has reserved judgment on a key issue in an appeal by Nama against a decision that it is a public body subject to public access requests for environmental information.

In its appeal, Nama is asking the Supreme Court to rewrite the relevant legislation in a way that would make it “much more difficult” for members of the public to use a European Directive governing access to environmental information, argued Niamh Hyland, for Commissioner for Environmental Information Emily O’Reilly.

Brian Murray, for Nama, said the issue was whether every statutory corporation and company in which shares are owned by a minister, including financial institutions, falls, for that reason alone, within the definition of “public authority”. That could not be the case and the commissioner’s interpretation was wrong, he argued.