The Office of the Information Commissioner is to press the Health Service Executive (HSE) to quickly introduce a consistent approach to dealing with Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.
When the HSE replaced the health board structure last January, the new body was to deal with FOI requests in a centralised way. However, The Irish Times found major variations in FOI charges between HSE areas when it requested inspection reports on creches.
The HSE West area provided creche inspection reports after the newspaper provided the standard €15 fee, while the HSE South Eastern area provided an estimate of €838 and sought a €250 deposit for accessing the same information.
The inspection reports disclosed by the HSE West showed only 21 of the 160 inspections carried out within a 12-month period from October 2004 had found full compliance with the preschool childcare regulations.
These cover areas such as fire precautions, safety procedures, standards of premises and facilities, and storage of hazardous materials.
Last night Minister of State for Children Brian Lenihan supported calls for all service providers to make their inspection reports openly available. A senior official in the Information Commissioner’s office said the commissioner, Emily O’Reilly, could not comment on specific FOI requests.
However, there was a clear lack of consistency in the way various HSE areas dealt with FOI requests. The inconsistency was of concern to the commissioner and the issue had been raised with the HSE on a number of occasions, the official said.
More than one year after its establishment, the HSE still did not have an appropriate dedicated unit co-ordinating all aspects of FOI activity for all the regions. "It is now high on our priority list to achieve that consistency very soon," he said.
"We needed proper coherent arrangements to emerge but we haven’t actually got that." Commenting on the inspection reports last night, Mr Lenihan said he believed all service providers should be encouraged to make their inspection reports available to parents.
"The findings of the preschool inspection reports of the Health Service Executive Western Area
as reported on in The Irish Times demonstrates the importance of having a regulatory system in place in respect of such services," he said.
Mr Lenihan also confirmed that a review of the existing regulations regarding preschool care has been completed, and that the revised regulations will be introduced in the coming months.
In a separate development, the HSE West confirmed last night that a total of 31 preschools, nurseries and creches in the region have closed since October 2004.
A spokeswoman said 15 services have ceased operating in Galway, 11 in Mayo, and a further five in Roscommon, since October 2004. While the HSE can seek to have the operator of a service prohibited from carrying on a preschool service, it cannot stop the service continuing under the same name with different owners. None of these closures were for this reason.
In a statement yesterday, the HSE also revealed that over 2,500 inspections of preschool services looking after more than three children were carried out in 2004. It also sought to "reassure" parents that the number of preschools that meet the criteria on annual inspection has increased in recent years.
However, it acknowledged "there may be issues which need to be addressed through follow up".
Catherine Bond of the National Children's Nurseries Association said it would request its 622 members to make HSE inspection reports available to parents, if they so required. But she said it was not in a position to ask members to release their inspection reports to The Irish Times.