An application to challenge the health minister’s refusal to hold a public investigation into Covid-19 related deaths in care homes must be heard, a High Court judge has ruled.
The action, launched earlier this year, has been brought on behalf of 19 individuals from across Ireland. They claim that the minister’s refusal, on June 28, to hold an inquiry was contrary to the public interest, unfair, unreasonable and disproportionate.
At the High Court yesterday Mr Justice Charles Meenan said that the application for leave, or permission, to bring the action challenging the refusal should be made in the presence of the State respondents.
He said that the applicants, represented by Ronan Lavery SC, had raised issues over the State’s obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights to conduct an inquiry or investigation into deaths.
That issue had been raised in a case that came before the Supreme Court in September, in which the relatives of the late Seamus Ludlow wanted the State to establish an inquiry into the handling of the Garda investigation into the Co Louth man’s murder in 1976. Meenan had adjourned the applicants’ ex-parte application for permission to bring the action until after the Supreme Court had ruled in the case brought by Ludlow’s family.
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The judge said that arising out of that decision a general right to an investigation had been established. However, he said that other issues, including what format such an investigation might take, still remain.
In light of those issues the judge said he was satisfied to direct that the application for leave in the case before him should be made in the presence of the State respondents. The judge then adjourned the matter to a date in December.
The court previously heard that most of the applicants bringing the challenge had a relative who was recorded as having died from Covid-19 while in a care home within the state. Some of the applicants claim to have experienced a range of failures within nursing homes during the pandemic, which they say should be included in the inquiry.
They want the state to conduct an investigation because of their deep concerns about their relative’s deaths and the preparedness and response of the care homes. They also claim that a public investigation into their deaths is required under both the Irish Constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights.
Such an investigation, they claim, would establish the facts, allow learning from events, provide accountability, help rebuild confidence in the sector and prevent a recurrence.
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In their judicial review proceedings against the an taoiseach, the minister for health, minister for finance, Ireland and the attorney general the applicants seek an order quashing last June’s decision not to hold an investigation.
They also seek a declaration that articles of the Irish Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights allow an investigation into the circumstances of Covid-19 deaths in the state’s care homes. They further seek declarations that the refusal to conduct such a probe is unlawful, unconstitutional and in breach of the applicants’ rights.