Four health boards have now released reports of inspections of named nursing homes under the Freedom of Information Act.
To date, The Irish Times has obtained reports from the North Eastern, North Western, Midland and East Coast Area (one of the three new boards in the former Eastern Health Board region) health boards.
The trend confirms the Act has brought public access to information to a new level. Previously, there would have been little hope of the public seeing such reports.
The development means any member of the public can write to the Freedom of Information section of a health board and ask to see inspection reports on particular nursing homes.
This information would be of particular use to anybody seeking a long-term nursing home for a relative or to one who suspects all is not well at a nursing home.
It could also, of course, be used by nursing homes to check what the inspectors said about them.
The motives of someone seeking information are not taken into account under the Act.
The North Eastern Health Board appears to have been the first to release such reports under the Act. Its decision last year to release inspection records to a brother of a man who had died in a nursing home was appealed to the Information Commissioner by the nursing home proprietor.
The Commissioner, Mr Kevin Murphy, supported the board's decision to release the information. He added that "in my view, there is a significant public interest in the public knowing how public bodies carry out inspections in individual cases and that the regulatory functions assigned to them achieve the purpose of the relevant regulations".
All the reports obtained by The Irish Times - which sought sample reports on homes picked at random in each health board - are positive about the homes concerned.
Email: promorain@irish-times.ie
Weblink: http://www.irlgov.ie/oic/ (Office of the Information Commissioner)