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CULTURE SHOCK:The chaos in public policy concerning archives in general, and health records in particular, demonstrates the Government's lack of concern for people who records are - by law - in its care

IN MAY 2008, a woman searching for her cat near Glounthaune, outside Cork city, came across hundreds of intact files at an old landfill site. They were records from the 1970s and 1980s from St Finbarr’s and Cork University hospitals. The HSE said it had no idea how they got there. It was not the first time that dumped medical files had been found in Cork, but it was a particularly dramatic illustration of the effects of the chaos in public policy concerning archives in general and health records in particular.