Department of Health (Northern Ireland),

14 November 2020
Michael McBride doing business as Chief Medical Officer
Robin Swann doing Business as Minister of Health DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
Castle Buildings
Stormont
Belfast

Notice to the Principal is Notice to the Agent; Notice to the Agent is Notice to the Principle

Notice of Freedom of Information Act 2000 request.

Dear Michael McBride and Robin Swann

Full, accurate and complete disclosure of SARSCOV-2 virus records

Please provide a full, accurate and complete list of records held within your office, and or under your authority, describing the isolation of a SARS-COV-2 virus, directly taken from a symptomatic patient of COVID-19 where the sample was not first combined with any other source of genetic material (not limited but by way of example monkey kidney cells, aka vero cells, liver cancer cells) thereby eliminating contamination as a possible alternative source of sampling.

Please note isolation is used in the normally understood meaning of the word – the act of
separating a thing from another.

I am not referring, and hence not requesting, to isolation meaning the culture of something else, the performance of an amplification test (eg PCR test which only detect mRNA or DNA) or the sequencing of “something”.

If any records match the above description and are available to the public elsewhere, please provide enough information so that I may identify and access each record with certainty (i.e. title, author(s), date, journal, and weblink or location where the public may access it).

I remind you full, accurate and complete disclosure is required.

Yours faithfully,

Tony Parker

Dear Department of Health (Northern Ireland),

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Department of Health (Northern Ireland)'s handling of my FOI request 'Full, accurate and complete disclosure of SARSCOV-2 virus records'.

I acknowledge that the personnel involved may be engaged in the daily discussions and consultations with
the Minister and the Executive in considering the most appropriate course of action to steer us through the current crisis, however, that is why the answer to my question supersedes all other priorities.

If you cannot provide me with the evidence requested then there is no need for your staff to be engaged in the daily discussions and consultations with the Minister and the Executive in considering the most appropriate course of action to steer us through the current crisis. the country could cease all COVID-19 related actions and the people could resume their normal lives. In fact, no other action would be needed other than to prosecute all staff, the Minister, the Executive, all MLAs and medical personnel involved for fraud and treason.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...

Yours faithfully,
Tony Parker

Dear Brendan G O’Neil,

thank you for your reply on the 2nd of February 2021.

In this letter, you stated:

"In addition to conducting the Internal Review I note that your original request has
yet to be formally answered and I, therefore, have directed the responsible
departmental officer to provide a formal response within 10 working days."

Please explain to me why you and your department have yet again failed to fulfil your duty and supply me with the answer to my original FOI request?

I will be reporting this failure to the Information Commissioner’s Office in due course.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Parker

Dear Brendan G O’Neill
Information & Knowledge Manager,

Please Take Notice.

It has now been nearly one calendar month since I last wrote to you asking for you to carry out your duty which you state in your letter dated the 2nd of February 2021 and I quote:

"In addition to conducting the Internal Review I note that your original request has
yet to be formally answered and I therefore have directed the responsible
departmental officer to provide a formal response within 10 working days. "

If I do not get a full, accurate and complete disclosure within 7 days of this Notice I will be contacting Cressida Woodall the Lead Case Officer, Information Commissioner's Office, to have her issue an enforcement notice, if not already done so, or to enforce it if she has and charge the following with contempt of court:

Michael McBride doing business as Chief Medical Officer
Robin Swann doing Business as Minister of Health DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
John McCann doing Business as Information Management Branch
Jeff Burns doing Business as Information Management Branch
Brendan G O’Neil doing Business as Information & Knowledge Manager.

as provided by:
Freedom of Information Act 2000
Changes over time for: Section 54
54 Failure to comply with notice.
(1)If a public authority has failed to comply with—
(c)an enforcement notice, the Commissioner may certify in writing to the court that the public authority has failed to comply with that notice.
and
(3)Where a failure to comply is certified under subsection (1), the court may inquire into the matter and, after hearing any witness who may be produced against or on behalf of the public authority, and after hearing any statement that may be offered in defence, deal with the authority as if it had committed a contempt of court.

I may also bring a civil and/or criminal case against the aforesaid people for an injury to my rights under the FOI Act 2000 for official repression, failure to perform a duty that they were required to perform. and in the process denied me in full and free access to or enjoyment of a right.

Yours sincerely,
Tony Parker

Dear Brendan G O’Neill
Information & Knowledge Manager,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of the Department of Health (Northern Ireland)'s handling of my FOI request 'Full, accurate and complete disclosure of SARSCOV-2 virus records'.

It seems that you providing me with contradictory statements.

1 "A considerable number of staff have been redeployed from their normal “day jobs” to
work solely on the response to the current pandemic. "
and,
"Unfortunately, the staff who are in the best position to answer your request, are the
very staff engaged in the daily discussions and consultations with the Minister and
the Executive in considering the most appropriate course of action to steer us
through the current crisis. "

2 "The Department does not hold the specific information you are requesting"

If you do not have a
"isolation of a SARS-COV-2 virus, directly taken from a symptomatic patient of COVID-19 where the sample was not first combined with any other source of genetic material
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: "

Then how can Arlene Foster, Michelle O'Neill, Michael McBride and Robin Swann justify their actions?

Please provide me with the recorded information as requested.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...

Yours faithfully,
Tony Parker

Dear DoH Covid-19 Directorate,

Will you please confirm that you are carrying out my request that the Department formally review this decision and when I can expect the report.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Parker

Dear DoH Covid-19 Directorate,

You have failed to provide me with an internal review within the allowed time limits therefore the following people are now in contempt of court and non-feasance of public office.

Michael McBride doing business as Chief Medical Officer
Robin Swann doing Business as Minister of Health DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
John McCann doing Business as Information Management Branch
Jeff Burns doing Business as Information Management Branch
Brendan G O’Neil doing Business as Information & Knowledge Manager.

Please provide my internal review immediately before I am forced to pursue this further.

Yours sincerely,
Tony Parker

Dear Burns, Jeff,

First, I rebut your claim that I was in any way harassing your staff with legal action.
In fact, it is impossible to threaten anyone with legal action. You cannot threaten someone with the due process of law, otherwise, there would be quite a few members of the BAR behind bars.

If you read my response correctly you would have seen that I was putting your staff on Notice that if your staff failed to carry out their statutory duty that this is contempt of court as provided by the FOI Act and therefore non-feasance of public office.

I then put your staff on Notice that if they continued in their failure to perform their statutory duty that I would have “to pursue this further” which is my right as stated within the FOI Act.

You also claimed that there were “attempts to bully or harass staff particularly with threats of court action”.
In fact, I have no need to personally carry out any “court action” as the FOI Act itself provides the remedy for non-feasance in public office by way of the Information Commissioner which I have already had to request help from for your staff’s failure to meet their statutory obligations. Also, I would again draw your attention to the fact that it is not an illegal action to bring legal action against a public servant who fails to perform their statutory obligations.

One of your reasons you use to apologise for your tardiness was “we continue to work in extremely challenging circumstances during the current situation” which I found amusing as the information that your department has provided through this information request clearly provides that there is no Covid 19 virus so I fail to see how there could be “extremely challenging circumstances” or a “current situation” for said tardiness.

However, all said and done I will accept your apology for your staff’s consistent failure to meet their statutory obligations and consider this matter closed.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Parker