A Supreme Court judge has rejected the North Western Health Board's attempt to establish a power to override parents who refused consent for a PKU heel-prick test on their infant child.
The Health Board accepted that H.W. and C.W. were careful and responsible parents. Medical opinion was unanimous that the diagnostic test was desirable, and the parents did not dispute that it would be medically beneficial. Their objection concerned whether the State could compel the test despite their refusal.
Mr Justice Hardiman noted that the PKU test had been available in Ireland since 1966 and that parental consent had routinely been sought. A small number of couples refused it each year. No evidence was produced that comparable testing was compulsory in another jurisdiction.
The Health Board had initially sought orders permitting it to carry out the test and preventing the parents from interfering. By the Supreme Court hearing, it confined its claim to declarations that the test was in the child's best interests and that the parents' refusal failed to vindicate the child's personal rights.
Mr Justice Hardiman rejected that approach. He held that legislation governing public health services reflected a strong principle of voluntarism in medical examination and treatment. He also found that the Constitution gives parents primary responsibility for decisions concerning their children where the family is functioning and the parents have not failed in their duties for physical or moral reasons.
The judge said the case did not involve an immediate life-threatening emergency and there was no basis for finding parental failure under Article 42.5 of the Constitution.
He further held that imposing a novel general duty on parents to submit children to medical testing would amount to a major change in public policy. Such a step was primarily for the legislature, which could weigh medical, social and constitutional considerations and enact specific rules subject to later constitutional review.
Mr Justice Hardiman therefore declined to make either declaration sought by the Health Board.