Nursing home inspection reports, including personally sensitive information about the owners of such properties, must be available to the public, the Ombudsman and information commissioner, Emily O'Reilly has said.
In her annual report as information commissioner, Ms O'Reilly reinforced her view expressed last February that such investigations should "be routinely available to the public as a matter of course".
Following the RTÉ Prime Time Investigates nursing homes programme, the Government said new legislation would "include a statement" about better public rights to such papers.
Following her February report, Ms O'Reilly said she "was happy" to report that one health board - since subsumed into the Health Service Executive - had begun to do so.
The handling of such reports was investigated by the Information Commissioner on foot of a complaint by a person living in the southeast, who complained about the care offered to her mother by a nursing home.
The individual sought all of the records held by the South Eastern Health Board on the home, including inspection reports and correspondence between the health board and the home.
However, the health board failed to respond to the request within the time laid down under the Freedom of Information Act, thus effectively refusing the application. Following an approach to the Information Commissioner by the individual, the health board said it would provide some records, though it refused others on the grounds of commercial sensitivity.
Ms O'Reilly rejected this: "In my view, there is a significant public interest knowing how health boards carry out nursing home inspections in individual cases and that the regulatory functions assigned to the boards achieve the purpose of the relevant legislation."
Accordingly, the information commissioner found that that the commercial sensitivity exemption did not apply in relation to any of the records at issue, including personal information about the nursing home's owners.
Under the Freedom of Information Act, such information is not released unless it can be shown that the public interest "outweighs the right to privacy of the individual. Ruling in favour of release, Ms O'Reilly said "there is a very significant public interest in members of the public having information" about the quality of nursing home standards.
"There is a strong public interest in increasing the openness and transparency of the process of the investigation of complaints by public bodies, particularly where the complaints concern the provision of care for elderly or vulnerable people," she declared.
The publication of information about the home's owners was justified because "personal matters of the proprietors inevitably bear significantly on the manner in which the home was operated.
"Inevitably, the manner of operation of the home would have had a major impact on the health, safety and sense of security and well-being of the elderly, frail and (in some cases) vulnerable residents of the home."
The release of the nursing home papers also served to "provide a proper picture of how the board conducted its business and that providing this proper picture serves . . . a very significant public interest".
In the Seanad recently, Minister of State for Health Sean Power said it "was unsatisfactory" for people not to have comprehensive information easily available on services provided in nursing homes.
The Department of Health and Children is currently reviewing the 1990 Nursing Homes Act and 1993 regulations to ensure that the newly-created HSE has the necessary powers to act.
Mr Power said he would ensure that a new Bill laying down national rules for the inspection of nursing homes due later this year would include a statement regarding public access to such.
The information commissioner has ruled that a report by health inspectors from the former Eastern Health Board into a case of salmonella poisoning by a fast-food restaurant should be published.
