From its establishment on January 1, 2005, the Health Service Executive in its entirety will be a public body under the Freedom of Information Act, 1997.
The Health Act 2004 contains a number of provisions relating to the application of FOI to the Executive (PDF). The position can be summarised as follows.
- As of January 1, 2005, there is a public right of access to records under the control of the Executive. Where the records are not personal to the requester this right will apply to records dating from October 21, 1998 or later.
- The records of specified bodies dissolved under Part 10 will transfer to the Executive. Where the specified body, such as a health board, was already a public body under FOI, all rights under FOI and the processing of requests in hands will continue undisturbed. There will continue to be a right to a statement of reasons in relation to the actions of a public body prior to its dissolution where these affect the individual requester.
- The General Medical Services (Payments) Board, the Health Service Employers Agency, and the Interim Health Service Executive were not public bodies prior to their dissolution. There will be rights of access and amendment under FOI to the records created by these bodies prior to their dissolution, but there will no FOI right to a statement of reasons for the actions of the dissolved body.
- The Health Act, 2004, contains two restrictions on the disclosure of information. The duty of confidentiality expressed in Section 26 does not impinge on the disclosure under FOI as this restriction is now listed in the Third Schedule of the FOI Act. Section 30 puts draft and unapproved corporate plans prepared under that section outside the scope of FOI for a period of five years.
- In recognition of the scale of the new organisation, the Executive has 6 months within which to comply with the publication requirements of the FOI legislation in preparing a new organisational guide and a digest of policies and procedures.
In anticipation of more detailed advice over the coming weeks the public is advised to make FOI requests to the health facility or office to which they would have made the request in 2004.
