{"id":355206,"date":"2026-02-25T08:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T08:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/355206\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T08:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T08:03:12","slug":"hiqa-seeks-orders-compelling-rte-to-disclose-nursing-home-footage-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/355206\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiqa seeks orders compelling RT\u00c9 to disclose nursing home footage \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa)<\/a> is seeking a High Court<\/a> order compelling RT\u00c9 to provide it with footage gathered by the broadcaster during an investigation into standards of care in nursing homes.<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 Investigates: Inside Ireland\u2019s Nursing Homes<\/a>, which was broadcast last June, focused on the treatment of residents at Beneavin Manor, in Glasnevin, Dublin 11, and The Residence in Portlaoise. <\/p>\n

Lawyers for Hiqa told Judge Emily Egan on Tuesday that covert footage broadcast in the programme appeared to show nursing home staff engaging in \u201cserious misconduct\u201d, in apparent contravention of regulations and standards. <\/p>\n

Hiqa is responsible for monitoring and inspecting nursing homes to ensure residents are safe and receive a high quality of care. To that end, the regulator is asking the High Court to direct RT\u00c9 to disclose footage gathered during the investigation. Such an order is known as a Norwich Pharmacal order. <\/p>\n

Moving the application on behalf of Finbarr Colfer, Hiqa\u2019s chief inspector of social services, barrister Jonathan Newman said the order was necessary to allow the inspector to fulfil his statutory role. <\/p>\n

Newman said his client had an obligation to demonstrate that RT\u00c9 had become \u201cmixed up\u201d in alleged \u201cwrongdoing\u201d. <\/p>\n

He submitted that it was clear RT\u00c9 had become mixed up in the wrongdoing, in the sense that the matters highlighted would not have been recorded or published without RT\u00c9\u2019s involvement.<\/p>\n

The court heard that RT\u00c9 itself was totally innocent, and not accused of any wrongdoing. <\/p>\n

Newman submitted that the order was necessary, as Hiqa had no other means of obtaining the footage.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Hiqa made 28 referrals to garda\u00ed over nursing homes in 2024, PAC toldOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He said the order sought was proportionate, as the inspector has a \u201cvery serious\u201d statutory role \u2013 one that he could not perform fully and properly with respect to issues in the RT\u00c9 programme without access to the footage. <\/p>\n

Newman also noted that the application was unusual, and had aspects to it that brought it \u201coutside the normal thrust\u201d of a standard Norwich Pharmacal application. <\/p>\n

One reason for this was that the footage was not sought for the purposes of initiating civil legal proceedings, but rather to allow for the carrying out of statutory functions. <\/p>\n

Joe Jeffers, barrister for RT\u00c9, said the broadcaster was neither consenting nor objecting to the order sought by Hiqa. <\/p>\n

Jeffers said RT\u00c9 welcomed Hiqa\u2019s decision to investigate the issues highlighted in the programme. <\/p>\n

Having regard to the fact that the footage captured images of third parties, including vulnerable residents and staff members, a court order was necessary to compel disclosure, he said. <\/p>\n

He said RT\u00c9 was anxious to work with Hiqa in the interest of patient safety, but said it had to balance this with competing interests. <\/p>\n

The court heard there was agreement between the parties on a draft order. Jeffers said it was a matter for the court if it considers the order sought appropriate \u2013 in the terms agreed or at all.<\/p>\n

Jeffers said that RT\u00c9 recognised that Hiqa\u2019s application was a novel one. <\/p>\n

He noted that the application went beyond the existing case law related to Norwich Pharmacal orders. <\/p>\n

The judge said she would reserve her judgment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) is seeking a High Court order compelling RT\u00c9 to provide it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,10476,13842,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,1181,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-355206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-high-court","15":"tag-hiqa","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-rte","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116130231232817369","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}