Carthy ‘eager to return to work and get on with life’

THE last doctor to see John Carthy alive found him eager to return to work and get on with his life after coming through a renewed bout of manic depression.

Dr Gerard Meagher told the Barr Tribunal yesterday that Mr Carthy came to him on March 20, 2000 - exactly a month before his death - for a renewal of a prescription and a final sick cert that would cover him until he returned to work a short time later.

Dr Meagher was in practice with Mr Carthy’s regular GP, Dr Patrick Cullen, at Coole, Co Westmeath, at the time. He did not know Mr Carthy very well but said he seemed “quite well”.

A week later Dr Meagher filled in a form for the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs in which he advised against putting Mr Carthy through an independent medical examination because there would be no major symptoms on display.

“He told me he had a new job in Longford which he was happy about because it was closer to home. He was as good as I could expect him to be. He had things mapped out. He was just going to get on with his life,” he told the tribunal.

Dr Meagher was giving evidence on the second day of hearings at the tribunal, which is investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting dead of Mr Carthy, aged 26, by garda marksmen following a 25-hour armed stand-off at his home in Abbeylara, Co Longford, on April 20, 2000.

He said he was disappointed to learn from Dr Cullen late on the night of April 19 that Mr Carthy was the man referred to in news reports about a siege in the village but it was “not unexpected”.

“Something like this could occur with somebody who had episodes of mania. He was probably in a brittle situation where he was quite well but could run into problems quite quickly.”

Another GP, Dr Desmond Bluett, who treated Mr Carthy while he lived in Galway from late 1998 to early 2000, was aware of his psychiatric history and renewed his prescriptions, making him take blood tests to ensure his long-term use of lithium did not lead to the drug building up in his system.

He described Mr Carthy as “quiet and affable. He did not strike me as somebody who was grossly disturbed,” he said.

Dr Niall Donoghue, a GP in Granard, said he saw Mr Carthy when his regular GP was not available and had written a letter of admission to St Loman’s Psychiatric Hospital, Mullingar, for him in July 1993.

He believed the last time he saw him alive was in 1995. The next time he was called to attend to him was on April 20, 2000, when he pronounced him dead at Abbeylara.

The tribunal also heard blood tests carried out after Mr Carthy’s death found levels of lithium in his system were within the acceptable range.

Pathologist, Dr Kevin Cunnane, said the results showed Mr Carthy “neither overdosed nor under-dosed”.