A family has failed for more than 15 months to discover the identity of a person who made a complaint to the Eastern Health Board about the father's relationship with his young daughter, the High Court heard yesterday.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly granted leave to Mr Conleth Bradley, for the family, to seek an order directing the EHB to make a decision in response to the family's requests for the identity of the person who made the "original, unsubstantiated and unfounded" complaint to the board in November 1997.
Leave was also given to seek a further or alternative order compelling the board to disclose the identity of the complainant and declarations that the board had infringed the family's rights in relation to how it dealt with the requests for that identity.
In November 1997, the parents were asked to attend an appointment in the EHB social work department to discuss information which had come to the board's attention. EHB officials told the parents the board was investigating their relationship with their daughter, then aged six. They asked for the complainant's name. In December 1997, they got a letter from the EHB which said the complaint regarding the father and his relationship with his daughter had been investigated and was not borne out.
In an affidavit, the child's father told how he and the child's mother tried to secure the identity of the person who made this "malicious and vicious" allegations, from the EHB, the Ombudsman and the Minister for Children.
His family wanted the complainant's name to distance themselves from that person. The experience had been traumatic and painful for his family.