Judge to review case for Shine inquiry

MORE than 150 people are expected to hold one-to-one meetings with the High Court judge appointed to determine whether an inquiry should be held into allegations of abuse against Drogheda surgeon Michael Shine.

Health Minster Mary Harney yesterday announced the appointment will be made in the coming weeks of a judge who will decide whether a commission could come up with new information and if it would be in the public interest.

The minister also promised a group representing alleged victims that she would look into the issue of compensation for those affected.

Dr Shine was found not guilty in a court case in 2003 after six men accused him of abusing them while they were teenage patients in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital.

However, he was struck off the medical register for professional misconduct last year following an investigation by the medical council.

Gardaí are investigating more than 80 allegations of abuse against him.

Dignity 4 Patients, the support group for people who claim to be affected by Dr Shine, said it was disappointed that the minister has still not announced a full public inquiry – something that would be a first in medical history.

But the group said it was optimistic that the judge will decide to establish such an inquiry when he or she sees the evidence put forward by the alleged victims.

Following a meeting with Ms Harney yesterday morning, Dignity 4 Patients spokeswoman Bernadette O’Sullivan said: “We are confident that all the information we have at Dignity 4 Patients and that individual people have points very clearly to the need for a full and comprehensive inquiry to be established.”

She said: “There never has been a look at how the system failed patients, you cannot move forward and put safeguards in place if you won’t know how the abuse happened. We have a lot of information that really needs to be studied.”

Fine Gael said it hoped Ms Harney was not using the review to put the issue on the long finger.

Health spokesman James Reilly said: “I welcome that patients will be given a forum to express their great hurt. I am glad that their voices will be heard.”

But he said he was “disappointed that a review rather than a Commission of Investigation has been chosen as this will delay further the more comprehensive investigation that could be carried out by a commission”.

He said: “I hope that this review will not be put on the long finger, its findings will be published without delay and that it can lead on to a more formal investigation into the allegations of the patients who have waited for so long for justice from the state.”

Labour’s Jan O’Sullivan said yesterday’s announcement does not go far enough: “Michael Shine’s victims are entitled to have the truth about what happened to them fully revealed, and they quite rightly feel that many questions remain unanswered.

“For example, it has never been explained why this abuse was allowed to go on for so long; why it was so hard for those who complained to get a hearing; and why professional colleagues circled the wagons and protected the abuser,” Ms O’Sullivan added.