N.McK and a Dublin Hospital

Please see the Supreme Court Judgment of 24 January 2006 in N.McK and the Information Commissioner [2006] IESC 2 which remitted this case to the Commissioner for fresh review. Details of the identity of the parties are disclosed only to the extent that they appear in the Supreme Court's judgment.

In conducting a fresh review in the light of the Supreme Court's judgment, the Commissioner invited and considered submissions from the requester, his daughter, her joint guardian and the hospital. Her staff met with the minor whose records were at issue.

As the finding was that all of the records disclosed the personal information of the requester's daughter, it was not necessary to consider whether the personal information of third parties as disclosed in some of the records fell to be released in the public interest or otherwise.

The requester, Mr McK, made application to the Information Commissioner on 10 March 2000 for a review of the decision of the Hospital to refuse his request under the Freedom of Information ("FOI") Act for access to the medical records of his daughter, who had been admitted to the Hospital in January 2000.

The requester and his late wife, had been separated for some years prior to Mrs McK's death [date]. Following Mrs McK's death, a Circuit Family Court order [date] under the Guardianship of Infants Act, 1964, as amended, appointed "B" (Mrs McK's brother who subsequently died [date]) and "M"("B's" wife) to act with Mr McK as joint guardians of Ms McK and her brother "R" The court order placed the two children in the joint custody of B and M and Mr McK. It provided for limited, supervised access by Mr McK to the children who were to live with B and M.