Dear Secretariat General of the European Commission,

Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:

The salaries, travel and other expenses paid out to 

Minister for Finance  Paschal Donohoe Ireland for the years 01/01/2020 to 01/01/2022 by the EU

Yours faithfully,

Madeline O'Brien

Dear BUDG ACCES DOCUMENTS,
Dear Secretariat General (SG),

Thank you for your response, in which you ask for my postal address, which you state is "required" for registering and handling my request in line with the "procedural requirements".

I would like this to be considered as a confirmatory application against your refusal to process my request without a postal address.

The right of access to EU documents is a fundamental right enshrined in Article 42 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and set out in Article 15 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. My request was made in exercise of that right.

Article 15 of the TFEU makes clear that the principles for and limits on exercise of the right of access to documents “shall be determined by the European Parliament and the Council, by means of regulations, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure” and that any Rules of Procedure adopted by the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the EU must be “in accordance with [these] regulations.” The Regulation currently in force is Regulation 1049/2001.

According to Regulation 1049/2001, the only things which may be "required" of an applicant in order for a request to be registered are found in Article 6.1, which includes an exhaustive list: applications must be made in "any written form", in one of the official languages, and in a "sufficiently precise manner to enable the institution to identify the document". I have met all of these requirements.

At no point does the Regulation mention that the requester must provide his or her postal address before the request can even be registered.

Indeed, since it was adopted in 2001, many requesters have exercised the right to documents under this Regulation without the need to provide a postal address.

Furthermore, the Regulation states that requests for access to documents should be handled "promptly" and in Article 15 there is an explicit reference to the need to "develop good administrative practices in order to facilitate the exercise of the right of access guaranteed by this Regulation."

The refusal to register a request if the citizen involved does not provide a postal address is contrary to the principles of good administration which require that officials “shall in particular avoid restricting the rights of the citizens … when those restrictions … are not in a reasonable relation with the purpose of the action pursued” (Code of Good Administrative Behaviour, Article 6). Delaying registering a request for want of a postal address in the 21st Century when emails are a common means of communicating with public administrations is an unnecessary impediment. It also serves to delay the processing of requests sent to the institutions, which constitutes an unreasonable and disproportionate impediment to the exercise of the fundamental right of access to EU documents.

Finally, in your response you have not indicated which "procedural requirements" you are referring to, which leaves me little certainty as to which procedural steps I now need to follow in order to exercise my right of access to documents. I am therefore requesting a copy of these requirements in order to know where I stand legally.

I look forward to your prompt response.

Yours sincerely,

Madeline O'Brien

Dear BUDG ACCES DOCUMENTS,
Dear BUDG ACCES DOCUMENTS,

Thank you for your help in redirecting to the https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/docume...
Register of Commission Documents
Welcome to the Register of Commission documents.

Here you can find various types of Commission documents such as proposals, impact assessments, communications, delegated and implementing acts and other Commission decisions, agendas and minutes of meetings held by the College of Commissioners.

""I find this tool to be ineffective in its purpose as I am limited in writing my request by character (input) limitation of this from filling exercise https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/docume...

I only hope that my original and secondary request will get through this channel (https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/docume...) for access to my requested access

I will update here if this tool is successfully or NOT successful""

Yours sincerely,

Madeline O'Brien

Dear Secretariat General of the European Commission,

Please pass this on to the person who reviews confirmatory applications.

I am filing the following confirmatory application with regards to my access to documents request 'EU Payments to irish finance minister,'.

[ GIVE DETAILS ABOUT YOUR COMPLAINT HERE ]
The response to my request is long overdue. by law, under all circumstances, the authority should have responded by now
The EU has failed to answer my request within the specified deadline.

A full history of my request and all correspondence is available on the

A full history of my request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/eu_pa...

Yours faithfully,

Madeline O'Brien

Dear [email address],

Thank your reply and links and future EU developments if accessing EU documents.

I find that my request was simple and basic but have found it rather time consuming, for a request for a simple, clear, conscience and a basic financial statements to my initial request.
Now I must follow and search and "search in a data base does not not yet exist and will not be up and running mid 2022-2023?

So I have to wait to search a database ,(see reply below.

It seems transparency is the issue here.
Either the EU can provide the documents under the freedom of information, the right to access, transparency within EU.
Is there not a document , such as,excel sheet (document) that should the figures and information I seek.
AskingtheEu functions on the right to access, the freedom of information and on EU fundamental rights.
Requesting and directing my requests to other data bases (website) that are not even public runnings, functioning and therefore not valid in you replied

Where is the open access and transparency
The asktheeu channel and open source of access, learning, support in freedom of information and right to access, is my main communication of requesting and access all documents from different sections of EU institutions and bodies.
The asktheeu portal is vital in my chosen preferred method of requesting and accessing documents from the EU.

That I did not receive the information I requested but send a reply to confirm with EU requests for my personal data when I am freely entitled to make my requests through the asktheeu portal as my only means communication through which I make a valid and enforceable requests

Therefore I can only conclude that NO I have not received the documents I sought.

Yours sincerely,

Madeline O'Brien
AsktheEU.orgDownload original attachment
(PDF file)This is an HTML version of an attachment to the Freedom of Information request 'EU Payments to irish finance minister,'.

Ref. Ares(2022)2758452 - 08/04/2022
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Secretariat-General
Directorate C – Transparency, Efficiency and Resources

SG.C.1-Transparency, Document Management and Access to Documents

Brussels,

Ms Madeline O’Brian

Copy by email:
ask+request-10734-
[email address]

Subject:
Your confirmatory applications for access to documents under
Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 - GESTDEM 2022/1028 and
2022/1050
Dear Ms O’Brian,
I refer to your e-mails of 6 April 2022, registered on 7 April 2022, by which you
submitted confirmatory applications in accordance with Article 7(4) of Regulation (EC)
No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission
documents1 (hereafter ‘Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001’).
On 17 February 2022 you submitted two initial requests. On 18 February 2022, the
Commission asked you to provide your postal address and explained that the request
cannot be registered before it is provided. On 23 February 2022 the Commission sent a
reminder and on 1 March 2022 it explained in greater detail why the postal address is
needed from the procedural point of view.
Please note that the Commission did not formally register your two initial requests and
did not send the acknowledgment of receipt given that you did not provide your postal
address. It is not possible to submit a confirmatory request without first having submitted
the initial request and received the acknowledgment of receipt. This would result in the
circumvention of the two-step administrative procedure established by the Regulation
(EC) No 1049/2001, by which a confirmatory request is a review of the reply provided at
the initial stage.
Against this background, the Secretariat-General will close your two confirmatory
applications. You may submit a new initial request2 and provide your postal address.

1 OJ L 145 of 31.5.2001, p. 43.

2 Electronic form available here European Commission - Register of Commission documents (europa.eu)
Commission européenne/Europese Commissie, 1049 Bruxelles/Brussel, BELGIQUE/BELGIË - Tel. +32 22991111

We would also like to inform you that the Commission is currently in the last phases of
developing a new online portal which will allow applicants to submit requests for access
to documents without providing their postal address, given that the new portal will allow
electronic transmission and notification of Commission replies. The new portal is
expected to go live by mid 2022.3
Yours sincerely,

Mariusz Daca
Deputy Head of Unit

3 Once
it
goes
live,
the
new
portal
will
be
available
on
the
following
link
https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/docume... . It will replace the above-mentioned electronic
form.
2
Electronically signed on 08/04/2022 11:00 (UTC+02) in accordance with Article 11 of Commission Decision (EU) 2021/2121