Irish High Court says no right to access social welfare decisions

The Irish High Court last week rejected an application by a woman appealing a social welfare decision for access to copies of previous decisions that might be relevant to her appeal. The applicant, who is a refugee, was represented by the Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC), and was appealing a decision about Child Benefit.

The Social Welfare Appeals Office (SWAO) told the Court that it did not keep any searchable database of its decisions until some time in 2010, and that it was not prepared to give access to its post-2010 decisions apart from a selection published on its website. It claimed it would be too costly to sort and anonymise the decisions so they could be made available.

The Court accepted the costs argument "notably in these straitened times" and held that there was "no duty on the Respondent [the SWAO] to maintain a database or open library of decisions to which the public can have access to research these decisions. This being so, the question of access thereto does not arise".

The full text of the judgment is available here.

 

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