Parents for Justice take organ cases to gardaí

FIFTEEN families, whose deceased children’s organs were removed without parental permission, have handed over files to the gardaí for criminal investigation.

Parents for Justice, the support group

representing over 2,000 families, said gardaí were investigating a number of hospitals at the centre of the scandal. The group also confirmed that more than 60 families are seeking damages from hospitals and health boards for removing organs from deceased relatives without their families’ knowledge or consent.

Spokesperson for Parents for Justice, Fionnuala O’Reilly said the hospitals were under investigation for failing to notify the coroner of children’s deaths. Under the Coroner’s Act, hospitals are obliged to notify the coroner of death from anaesthesia or within 24 hours of surgery. Ms O’Reilly claims there were hundreds of cases where that did not happen.

The group will hold an extraordinary general meeting in Dublin Saturday to push for a statutory inquiry. Parents for Justice withdrew last month from the Dunne Inquiry into organ retention, citing “the absence of specific statutory proposals” and long delays in getting the inquiry up and running.

Ms O’Reilly said every member attending the meeting will be encouraged to turn their cases over to the gardaí so that further criminal charges can be bought against hospitals and medical staff. Parents will also be asked to withdraw their consent for the use by the Inquiry of any information they had provided to it. Ms O’Reilly said only five of the 11 hospitals have furnished the inquiry with information to date, despite the fact the inquiry had been in session for 19 months. “It has not been a credible process for a long time and has been an issue of huge concern.”Ms O’Reilly said the commitment of Parents for Justice to forcing establishment of a statutory inquiry “is undiminished and unwavering”.Apart from the retention and disposal of organs there were other serious issues, such as the failure to register deaths and the involvement of pharmaceutical firms. Ms O’Reilly said these issues could only be rigorously examined in a statutory format.