Parents for Justice co-founder O’Reilly dies

FIONNUALA O’Reilly, one of four mothers who founded Parents for Justice, a support group for families who discovered that their deceased children’s organs had been retained without their knowledge, died yesterday.

Ms O’Reilly, 42, from Pollerton, Co Carlow, who was married with three children aged between seven and 21, will be buried in the same grave as her son, Michael, who was just five-months-old when he died during exploratory surgery in December 1995.

Four years after her son’s death, Ms O’Reilly learned that his heart and lungs had been retained following a post-mortem in Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Dublin. That same year Ms O’Reilly agreed to head Parents for Justice, a position she held until her death.

The campaign group always insisted it was the callous disregard with which most organs were disposed that was the source of deepest pain and abhorrence among most families.

Retained organs were incinerated along with hospital waste.

Two-and-a-half years ago, Ms O’Reilly, a secondary school teacher at St Leo’s College in Carlow was diagnosed with breast cancer and made no secret of the fact.

As well as battling her illness she continued to be actively involved with Parents for Justice until her failing health made that impossible.

The campaign’s administrator, Charlotte Yeates, said Ms O’Reilly was an inspiration to everyone she came in contact with.

“She fought for justice to the very end. She will be sadly missed,” she said.