The High Court has ordered RT\u00c9 to provide the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) with covert footage gathered by the broadcaster during an investigation into standards of care in nursing homes.<\/p>\n
RT\u00c9 Investigates: Inside Ireland\u2019s Nursing Homes, broadcast last year, focused on the treatment of residents at Beneavin Manor, in Glasnevin, Dublin 11, and The Residence in Portlaoise.<\/p>\n
The programme highlighted substandard care at the nursing homes. Hiqa considered the programme to raise \u201cextremely serious concerns\u201d, including instances of residents being treated roughly or left unattended, disrespect for residents\u2019 privacy and dignity, and falsification of records.<\/p>\n
Hiqa is responsible for monitoring and inspecting nursing homes to ensure residents are safe and receive a high quality of care. To that end, the regulator sought the entirety of the covert footage captured by RT\u00c9 during its investigation.<\/p>\n
RT\u00c9 welcomed Hiqa\u2019s investigation of the issues highlighted in the programme, but said it could only release the entirety of the footage captured during the investigation on foot of a court order.<\/p>\n
In the circumstances, Hiqa sought such an order, known as a Norwich Pharmacal order. RT\u00c9 took a neutral position to Hiqa\u2019s bid for the order.<\/p>\n
In a judgment published on Tuesday, Ms Justice Emily Egan said she would grant the order sought by Hiqa.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe nature of the wrong alleged, its reporting by RT\u00c9 and the requirement that such wrongdoings are redressed and prevented in the public interest, justify the granting of the order,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Explaining her decision, the judge referred to legal principles established for the granting of a Norwich Pharmacal order. The judge \u2013 while noting several novelties to Hiqa\u2019s case \u2013 said she was satisfied that the ice regulator\u2019s application reached the threshold required.<\/p>\n
She noted that even when that threshold is met, the granting of a Norwich Pharmacal order remains at the discretion of a judge. She said that the interest in granting the disclosure order must be \u201cbalanced against those weighing the other way\u201d.<\/p>\n
With reference to factors guiding this discretion, the judge said there was strong public interest in permitting Hiqa to have access to the maximum amount of material to engage its investigation. She said making the order may deter similar wrongdoing, and the complete footage cannot be obtained from another source.<\/p>\n
She noted that \u201cthe public interest in maintaining the confidentiality of journalistic sources is not engaged in this case\u201d. \u201cI do not suggest that in other cases involving investigations by media organisations disclosure will be ordered,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cThe release of the complete unedited footage is, moreover, proportionate to the aim pursued, namely the facilitation of regulatory investigation, which RT\u00c9 supports and has called for in general terms.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge said she would make the order as sought by Hiqa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The High Court has ordered RT\u00c9 to provide the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) with covert footage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-538255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}