Decision
Ms X and National Museum of Ireland
From Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC)
Case number: OIC-159764-Q9X1S8
Published on
From Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC)
Case number: OIC-159764-Q9X1S8
Published on
Whether the Museum was justified in refusing access, under section 15(1)(c) of the FOI Act, to further records relating to archaeological human remains reports on the grounds that processing the request would cause a substantial and unreasonable interference with or disruption of its work and under section 15(1)(a) of the Act on the ground that it does not hold a specific report sought by the applicant
16 October 2025
In a request dated 20 February 2025, the applicant sought access to all archaeological human remains reports relating to human remains discovered. The applicant asked that the ‘the report relating to the most recent discovery of the young woman’ be included. After seeking a time extension to process the applicant’s request under section 14(1)(a) of the FOI Act, on 1 April 2025, the Museum informed the applicant that her request needed to be refined.
In its letter of 1 April 2025, the Museum stated that, before refusing the request under section 15(1)(c), and as per section 15(4), it would attempt to assist the applicant in refining her request. The Museum suggested that the applicant may refine her request to a limited date range or to records contained in its correspondence database only. After engaging with the applicant, on 7 April 2025, it was agreed that the scope of the applicant’s request was refined to the following:
“All archaeological human remains reports relating to human remains discovered, which are contained in the Museum’s correspondence database. This should include any report relating to the most recent discovery of the young woman. If necessary, the Museum will assist in dividing the request concerning timeframes to a more manageable scope in order to answer the Freedom of Information Act request”.
On 15 May 2025, the Museum part granted the applicant’s request. The Museum said that for the purpose of responding to the applicant’s request, it manually compiled a list of reports relating to the discovery of human remains as contained in the Museum’s correspondence database from 2011-present. It decided to part-release the Excel spreadsheet it complied containing the list of reports. The Museum said that it considered the timeframe from 2011 to be manageable in scope and that it applied this timeframe to ensure that the applicant’s request no longer fell to be refused under section 15(1)(c) of the FOI Act. The Museum redacted certain information from the record it released to the applicant under sections 30, 37 and 39 of the FOI Act. As the applicant has not challenged these redactions at any point, I do not consider it necessary to consider these redactions any further in this review.
In its response to the applicant’s request, the Museum also decided to provide the applicant with a copy ofBreaking Ground, Finding Graves – reports on the excavations of burials by the National Museum of Ireland 1927-2006 . The Museum said that this two-volume monograph, published in 2011, published all previously unpublished excavations of burials investigated by the National Museum of Ireland. The Museum said that this publication, combined with the many publications in journals and books available through local libraries and bookshops, bring all reports of burials or human remains into the public domain, prior to 2011. The Museum refused that part of the applicant’s request for ‘the report relating to the most recent discovery of the young woman’ under section 15(1)(a) on the ground that no report exists in its records. The Museum said that it understood the reference to the ‘young woman’ as the discovery of female remains near Bellaghy, Co. Derry in 2023. The Museum said it does not hold any records relating to these remains as they were discovered in Northern Ireland. It said, while the Museum collaborated with National Museums NI on the study of the remains, the Museum does not receive reports of discovery of archaeological objects, including humans remains, from outside the State.
On 22 May 2025, the applicant sought an internal review of the Museum’s decision and asked the Museum to forward reports on the excavations of burials from 2006 to date. The applicant said that the Museum response to her request was not sufficient and said that it should only be a matter of printing the reports relating to human remains discovered from 2011-date. The applicant also asked if it is possible for the Museum to request the report on the discovery of the female remains near Bellaghy from another museum, in this case National Museums NI.
On 13 June 2025, the Museum affirmed its original decision. The Museum stated that it would not simply be a matter of printing the reports of human remains discovered from 2006 on or from 2011 to date. On 13 June 2025, the applicant applied to this Office for a review of the Museum’s decision.
During the course of this review, the Museum provided submissions to this Office about the nature of the records it holds that are relevant to the applicant’s request, its record management systems and the work involved in processing the applicant’s request. The applicant was provided with details of those submissions and invited to make further submissions. While the applicant contacted this Office for a progress update of her case, she did not make any submissions in the matter.
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 submissions made by the Museum in support of its decision. I have decided to conclude this review by way of a formal, binding decision.
This review is concerned with whether the Museum was justified in its decision to refuse access to further records of archaeological human remains reports under sections 15(1)(c) of the Act on the grounds that processing the request would cause a substantial and unreasonable interference with or disruption of its work. The review also considers whether the Museum was justified under section 15(1)(a) of the Act in refusing access to ‘the report relating to the most recent discovery of the young woman’ on the ground that it does not hold any such record.
Section 15(1)(c) provides that an FOI body may refuse to grant a request where it considers that granting the request would, by reason of the number or nature of the records concerned or the nature of the information concerned, require the retrieval and examination of such number of records or an examination of such kind of records concerned as to cause a substantial and unreasonable interference with, or disruption of, work of the body. It should be noted that a refusal may be made on the basis of a disruption of the work of a particular functional area, and not necessarily on the basis of disruption of work of the body as a whole.
However, section 15(4) provides that a request cannot be refused under section 15(1)(c) unless the body has first assisted, or offered to assist, the requester in amending the request so that it no longer falls to be refused under that section. As such, before I consider whether the Museum was justified in refusing the request under section 15(1)(c), I must first consider whether it complied with the provisions of section 15(4) before doing so.
The FOI Act is silent on the precise nature or level of the assistance to be offered under section 15(4). This Office takes the view that before a body can refuse a request under section 15(1)(c), the body must first have provided reasonable assistance to the requester in amending the request, or have offered to provide assistance in cases where the requester is not willing to amend the original request, in order to comply with the requirements of section 15(4). On the question of what constitutes reasonable assistance, this Office considers that the level or nature of the assistance to be provided can vary significantly from case to case and will depend on the particular facts and circumstances of the case. It will often also depend on the willingness of the parties to engage in meaningful discussion on what might be acceptable in the circumstances.
In its submissions to this Office, the Museum outlined its communications with the applicant described above before its decision on 15 May 2025. Upon receiving the applicant’s original request, the Museum stated that it put her on notice that section 15(1)(c) may apply as her request was similar to part of a previous request from her which was also refused under section 15(1)(c) (a decision which was subsequently affirmed by this Office on 23 April 2025, case reference OIC-157245-L9K4R4).
The Museum stated that the applicant was initially reluctant to narrow the scope of her original request, but with the Museum’s assistance, the parties agreed to rephrase the request to “All archaeological human remains reports relating to human remains discovered, which are contained in the Museum’s correspondence database. This should include any report relating to the most recent discovery of the young woman. If necessary, the Museum will assist in dividing the request concerning timeframes to a more manageable scope in order to answer the Freedom of Information Act request”.
Having considered the Museum’s correspondence with the applicant, I am satisfied that the Museum fulfilled its obligation under section 15(4) to offer to assist the applicant in narrowing the scope of her request in order to avoid its refusal under section 15(1)(c). I will now proceed to consider whether the Museum was justified in refusing the relevant parts of the request under section 15(1)(c) of the Act.
The Investigating Officer asked the Museum why the request had to be refined to the correspondence database and why a list of the reports to 2011 was part-released to the applicant rather than the reports themselves. The Investigating Officer asked why it was the Museum’s position that retrieval and/or examination of records beyond what was released would cause a substantial and unreasonable interference with or disruption of work of the Museum (or of a particular functional area of the Museum).
The Museum said that it answered the applicant’s request based on the agreed refined terms following its engagement with the applicant outlined above. The Museum said that the Irish Antiquities Division (IAD) is the curatorial division responsible for the archaeological collections, including human remains. It said the IAD maintains a database, known as the correspondence database, which records items of correspondence on various business matters relevant to the IAD, including reports of the discovery of archaeological objects. It stated that records of human remains in the Museum’s collection are stored on the correspondence database if the remains arise from a reported discovery. The correspondence database contains information relating to reports of the discovery of archaeological objects, including details of the location, finders, finds and items. When a report of a discovery of an archaeological object (including human remains) is received by the Museum, it said that a new file is opened in the correspondence database, and the description entered is as reported by the finder to the Museum. In total, it contains over 19,000 correspondence files, the earliest of which dates to 1898.
The Museum said that the correspondence database has some basic search functionality. In compiling the spreadsheet which it provided to the applicant, the Museum said that a staff member carried out an electronic free search of all records within the IAD Correspondence Data from 2011 onwards using the search terms “human” and “remains”. Having carried out this free search, it said the staff member then copied this correspondence into an Excel Sheet. The records were then reviewed in Excel to ascertain whether or not they were relevant to the refined request i.e. whether they related to the reports of the discovery of humans remains. The Museum said that the correspondence entries that were relevant to the request were extracted and compiled into a new Excel sheet.
The Museum said that the released record reflects what is maintained on the correspondence database which was the agreed refinement of the original request to avoid a full refusal under section 15(1)(c). Based on the level of work involved in preparing the Excel sheet record, and the volume of records contained in the correspondence database, the Museum said it considered a timeframe of 2011-present was manageable in scope. Accordingly, it said it applied that timeframe to the request to ensure that it no longer fell to be refused under section 15(1)(c) of the FOI Act. In doing so, the Museum also had regard to the fact that it would be able to provide the requester with the publicationBreaking Ground, finding graves – reports on the excavations of burials by the National Museum of Ireland, which brought reports of burials or human remains into the public domain, and was published in 2011.
The Museum also provided its reasoning as to why it is its position that administering the request in its original format would cause a substantial and unreasonable interference with, or disruption of, its work. It stated that records of human remains in the Museum’s collection are also stored on the excavation database. It said that this is a separate system which was devised because of the volume of material that can be found in any one excavation. The Museum said that records showed that 9,042 boxes of human remains from licenced excavations were held in the Museum’s collections. The Museum stated that excavation licence holders are required to report the discovery of human remains to the Museum. In general, it said that reports of discovery of human remains from licence holders are then placed on the physical excavation files. Further, the Museum does not have a central records management system. This means that, to respond the request in its original format, the Museum said it would need to search all the records described above, including manually searching the 9,042 boxes, in order to compile all the records originally sought by the applicant. The Museum estimated that it would take two members of staff working full time over several weeks to fully examine all relevant records to determine if these records contain information relevant to the request.
The Museum also said that it may be able to grant a request for identified specific reports, but the applicant has not done this in her request here.
In my view, the Museum has outlined why granting further records in this request would involve a substantial interference with its work. It should be noted that a refusal may be made on the basis of a disruption of the work of a particular functional area within the FOI body, and not necessarily on the basis of disruption of work of the body as a whole.
Section 15(1)(c) of the FOI Act is an express acknowledgement of the fact that there are limits to the resources a public body must expend on processing requests. The FOI Act seeks to strike a balance between ensuring access to records to the greatest extent possible and managing the administrative burden on FOI bodies in dealing with requests that require a significant allocation of time and resources. It seems to me that the Museum has endeavoured to facilitate the applicant’s request by extracting certain information from its records which it provided to her.
Having considered the submissions before this Office, I accept that the time and resources that would be required to retrieve and examine further records beyond those provided to the applicant would cause a substantial and unreasonable interference with, and disruption of, the Museum’s work. Accordingly, I find the Museum was justified in its decision to refuse access to further records sought by the applicant under section 15(1)(c) of the FOI Act.
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 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.
The Museum stated that it refused the part of the applicant’s request for ‘the report relating to the most recent discovery of the young woman’ under section 15(1)(a) on the ground that it does not hold any such report. The Museum said that it understood the request to be referring to the archaeological female human remains in Bellaghy, Co. Derry in 2023 based on the reports in the media regarding this discovery which were contemporaneous with receipt of the original request. The applicant did not confirm or deny that this was the discovery she was referring to, but in the absence of confirmation or denial, I have no reason to dispute that this is an accurate interpretation of this part of the applicant’s request.
The Museum stated that these human remains were discovered in Northern Ireland. The Museum said that it collaborated with National Museums NI on the study of these human remains, but it does not receive reports of the discovery of archaeological objects, including humans remains, from outside the State. The Museum said that there is no obligation on an FOI body to retrieve records from other jurisdictions to fulfil an FOI request.
It is important to note that section 15(1)(a) requires all reasonable steps to be carried out by the FOI body to ascertain the whereabouts of the requested records. However, in this case, the Museum has explained that it does not hold the requested record as the discovery was made outside the state. Therefore, it would not be reasonable for the Museum to search for a record that it does not hold. If an FOI body does not hold the record sought, then that is the end of the matter from an FOI perspective. It is open to the applicant to contact National Museums NI directly to enquire if it holds any relevant records that may be of interest to her.
In light of this, I find that the Museum was justified in its decision to refuse the report relating to the discovery of female human remains near Bellaghy, Co. Derry under section 15(1)(a) of the Act on the basis that the Museum does not hold any such record.
Having carried out a review under section 22(2) of the FOI Act, I hereby affirm the Museum’s decision to refuse further records sought by the applicant under section 15(1)(c) of the FOI Act. I also affirm the Museum’s decision to refuse a report relating to the discovery of the remains in Co. Derry under section 15(1)(a) of the Act.
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.
Richard Crowley
Investigator