FoI request: HSE estimate is a gagging order

There is hardly a scandal undermining the confidence we can have in public affairs that might not have been avoided if we had a proactive, effective, and respected culture of accountability. 

Most of those destructive, wasteful affairs might not have materialised if those involved believed they would be held to account or have to explain their actions if difficulties arose. In what seems a peculiarly Irish context, accountability equates with responsibility and where there’s no accountability there’s no responsibility.

In circumstances where accountability is routine, it is hard to believe that drink-driving test figures would have been so spectacularly exaggerated or that the banks that defrauded some tracker mortgage holders would have been so bold. The prospect of a day of reckoning might have saved corporate or individual integrity.

One of the mechanisms used to try to have some degree of accountability is the Freedom of Information Act 2014. It can be effective but, as we report today, not always practical.

Our health correspondent sought details on the establishment of the maternal and newborn clinical management system at two hospitals. The scope of the questions was necessarily wide but the cost of processing the request estimated by the HSE is incredible and makes FoI legislation toothless and irrelevant.

The HSE suggested it would cost €606,700 to compile the data sought. If the cost was even a fraction of that it would cloak that project in secrecy. The HSE has developed an unenviable record around accountability and trustworthiness. Its CEO has had to revisit Dáil committees on several occasions to “set the record straight”.

This €606,700 estimate is in effect a gagging order and shows that public projects, using public money, can be beyond public scrutiny.