Medical Council to pay costs in Neary review case

THE Medical Council is facing a substantial bill after the High Court yesterday directed it to pay the legal costs of two consultant obstetricians who successfully challenged findings of professional misconduct against them by the council over their 1998 reports on the work of Dr Michael Neary at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.

Mr Justice Peter Kelly ordered that the council pay the costs incurred by Dr John Murphy and Professor Walter Prendiville in their successful judicial review proceedings which resulted in the judge last week overturning findings of professional misconduct against them.

Overturning those findings, Mr Justice Kelly ruled the council and its fitness-to-practice committee (FPC) had applied and upheld, the wrong standard of professional misconduct in reaching its decision. The FPC had applied an “expected standards of conduct” test, not the “moral turpitude” standard “disgraceful conduct”, set out up to 2004 in all its guides on ethical standards for the medical profession.

Both doctors, through Nicholas Butler SC, for Prof Prendiville, and Eugene Gleeson SC, for Dr Murphy, yesterday applied for their costs but Patrick Leonard SC, for the council, argued the court should make no order for costs in the judicial review proceedings as the council was a regulatory body discharging its functions.

The judge said he accepted there was no dishonesty or bad faith in the actions of the council or the FPC in this case and his judgment allowing the doctors’ challenge should not be interpreted in that light.

However, he said the council behaved particularly unfairly in relation to a press release issued on its behalf which stated the council had upheld the findings of professional misconduct but failed to say no sanction was being imposed.