PEOPLE who have received blood transfusions or blood products will be entitled to know where the blood has come from and what tests have been carried out on it, under the terms of the Freedom of Information Bill to be published on Monday.
The Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB) will be required to open its files to the public from early 1998, earlier than other State-sponsored bodies.
The early application of the Act to the BTSB will give members of the public a right to see all past records that relate to themselves, all new records created from the time the Act comes into force, and all past records "necessary to understand more recent information". Personal information will not, however, be released to a third party unless it is judged to be in the public interest to do so.
The Freedom of Information Act will come into force for Government Departments a year after it is passed into law, with local authorities and health boards due to come within its scope after two years, and other public bodies at various times after that.
The BTSB, however, is one of a small number of public bodies outside the Civil Service to be required to give information to the public in the first phase of the Act's operation.
Its inclusion signals Government concern that, after the hepatitis C affair and the revelations about the possible infection with HIV of up to 15 people who received blood transfusions in the 1980s, public confidence in the BTSB needs to be restored by a display of transparency.
The Act, if passed, will for the first time establish for the public a legal right to official information and oblige public bodies to answer requests for information.
It will give members of the public a right to have personal files amended if the information they contain is "incomplete, incorrect or misleading". It will establish a principle that all official information should be available unless the body holding it can establish that it is in the public interest not to release it.
An independent information commissioner - expected to be the Ombudsman, Mr Kevin Murphy - will have power to make binding rulings in cases where members of the public appeal against refusals to release information.
The main areas excluded from the Act's operation will be law enforcement, defence, security and international relations, but even in these areas the information will have to be "of exceptional sensitivity or seriousness", and information relating to the performance of a body such as the Department of Justice or the success or failure of its policies will not be exempt.
A Minister wishing to deny the public access to especially-sensitive material will have to sign a certificate which will be reviewed by other Government members.
