The High Court has declined jurisdiction over an attempted appeal by Ita Long against a decision to obtain an expert report during an appeal concerning her application to register as a social worker.
Mr Justice Allen ruled that the Appeals Committee’s decision was procedural, not one of the decisions that the Health and Social Care Professionals Act allowed to be appealed to the High Court. The court therefore declined to entertain Long’s application to extend the time for bringing the appeal. It did not rule on the merits of her registration application or on whether the committee should obtain the report.
Long had applied for registration under transitional provisions in 2013. Her application was deferred while an administrative review and a Health Service Executive disciplinary process were completed. The Registration Board refused the application in March 2016. On her first appeal, the Appeals Committee cancelled that refusal and directed the Board to make a new decision. The Board again refused registration in July 2017, and Long appealed again.
The committee heard that second appeal in private on 17 October 2017 and said it would deliberate. During deliberations, it sought legal advice on whether it could obtain an expert report before deciding the appeal. The advice, copied to Long for any observations, was that it could do so because it had not yet made a decision. Long objected, saying an expert report should have been sought before or during the hearing and that the committee should decide on the evidence and submissions already before it.
On 22 January 2018, the committee recorded that it had not yet decided the appeal and could seek a report. It said it could not decide the appeal without an independent expert report. Long sought to appeal that decision and acknowledged that the time limit had passed.
Justice Allen said the Act provided an exhaustive appeal scheme: an applicant could appeal a refusal of registration and then appeal a committee decision confirming that refusal. It did not provide an appeal against procedural decisions made while the registration application or appeal was still under consideration. Any challenge to such a decision had to await the substantive outcome, he said.
The judge accepted the Council’s submission that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear this proposed appeal. He did not decide whether the committee’s procedural decision was right or wrong. He also said the court had not been asked to decide whether it could extend the statutory appeal deadline in a case involving a final committee decision confirming a refusal of registration.