The Supreme Court has upheld, by a majority of four to one, a challenge by the Rotunda Hospital to the Information Commissioner's decision requiring it to give an elderly man the age of his birth mother.
The man who sought the information died aged 86 in late 2008 after which his daughter continued his search for information about their family history.
He had been "boarded out" at various addresses in the Dublin area immediately after his birth in 1922 to an unmarried woman and his father was not named on his birth and baptismal certificates.
A majority Supreme Court - comprising the Chief Justice, Mr Justice John Murray, Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman, Mr Justice Nial Fennelly and Ms Justice Fidelma Macken - today ruled the information sought was given by the man's mother in confidence and the maternity hospital was entitled under law to refuse to disclose it.
The man was not entitled under the Freedom of Information Acts to the information, the court ruled. The information related to his private interest and the commissioner erred in considering granting him access to it was in the public interest.
Mr Justice Fennelly said the commissioner based her decision on the public interest in persons generally having the fullest possible information on their origins but the FOI Acts contained "no such policy".
Mr Justice Fennelly also observed this "small matter" had been subject of two decisions by the hospital, a decision on review by the commissioner and a decision on appeal by a point of law by the High Court, all of which took place under the FOI Acts 1997 to 2003.
"It is difficult to resist the instinct that a practical solution could have been found and that it would all have been much simpler if the FOI had not been invoked," he said.
In her dissenting judgment dismissing the appeal, Ms Justice Susan Denham said she believed the public interest would be better served by granting the man his request. The fact the man was the son and next of kin of his mother carried signficiant weight and this was an "entirely different situation" to a request for information from a person with no kinship connections, she said.
All the judges agreed the FOI Acts do apply to information recorded before the Acts commenced and provide for a right of access to records containing "personal" information about the person seeking access.
The man's daughter was in touch with the hospital since 1989 seeking information about his birth mother, her own grandmother, and had said it was not possible to trace her without it.
In 2004, she was told the hospital could not, because of prohibitions on disclosure of "personal information" in the Freedom of Information Act, disclose the woman's age. It also indicated it had information about the birth mother's own wishes to the effect the man had been turned away in the 1930s from a house in the area where she had an address.
The information held by the hospital included a name and address for the elderly man's mother and the date of his birth and baptism.
The commissioner ruled the man was entitled to the information on grounds the age of a person was personal information in the public domain, there was evidence he was the woman's son and there was a strong public interest in persons having the fullest possible information on their origins.
In opposing that ruling, the hospital referred to ordinary ethical requirements for confidentiality imposed on hospitals. It said all information given which was personal to a patient should enjoy absolute confidentiality whether it was required for theapeutic purposes or otherwise and this was of special importance in the case of crisis pregnancies.
The High Court upheld the comnmissioner's view the mother's age was not confidential personal information, disclosure of which was prohibited under the FOI, as it was already available through the General Register Office.
The hospital previously told the court many people seeking similar information were brought up in humble circumstances, reared in institutions or informally adopted and had little or no information about their parents.
