Professor Denis Cusack:

I made such a recommendation three years ago. We would support that. However, we must be very careful. The most central person is the deceased. I remind everybody every now and then the most important person here is the person, sadly, who is not here, the deceased, then their family and then others. In one case I dealt with a photograph of a deceased was held up by a family member, which I thought was very poignant, for the entire two days. I agree with the PFDs. The model is there. We recommended a central database, and I am sorry I sound like a broken gramophone record, 20 years ago in order that these could be collected and seen. However, we need to be careful. Reference was made to the families. In my experience Ireland has changed during the past 20 years. Often we do not have a single voice for the family. Sometimes there are two or three and there are very serious tensions among them. It is sometimes difficult to say who is the family. Each section of the family must be given equal hearing; each has the same rights.

I have made recommendations about roles for which the local authorities are responsible. I must say in all my years in this role, Kildare County Council has never taken an adverse approach to me, my funding or my resources. The coroner remains independent. I would give credit to Kildare County Council. We are independent judicial officers. We must be brave, hear evidence, rely on the facts and bring in a verdict or findings based on that. Sometimes that is not what the families wish to hear. We are not there to bring in findings for any particular person unless they are based on evidence but we must listen very carefully to the family.

In terms of admissibility, I would refer to section 55 of the 2007 legislation which deals with non-admissibility in criminal proceedings of evidence given at inquest and section 56 which deals with admissibility of a report in civil proceedings. We have done a good deal of this.

With regard to delays, I want to make another point. One of the questions asked by the committee was about closure. As a doctor and a coroner, I have a difficulty with the word “closure". When we lose somebody dear to us, I do not think we ever really close that off. There is always hurt, a gap, a loss. There is always a pain at Christmas, anniversaries and birthdays. The closure is about bringing them to the end at least of the procedure and they feel they do not have that hanging over them. That is the closure. I hope for some people we may bring an emotional closure. I talk about serenity, peace or acceptance. I am not sure we can ever close off on a loss of a loved one but what we can do is bring a closure to proceedings that are burdensome. I will say this, as I will be saying it publicly next Tuesday at my coroner’s sitting, with respect to adjournment of inquests for criminal proceedings in certain areas. I will not mention any authority regarding accidents and fatalities at work, but I am dealing with a case has been going on for six years. I cannot proceed with my inquest as only last year the case went from the Director of Public Prosecutions to criminal proceedings. Only two days ago, with regard to another accident at work case, the partner and brother of the deceased told me they are desperate and hurt. They asked why was it taking so long. I had to tell them that I agreed with them and that I felt their hurt but I could not proceed because there are still applications before me. That is now over three years. We must examine certain aspects of that. That was dealt with by the way and this is one of the matters on which we did not agree with the Department under section 57 of the legislation or section 25 of the current Bill. Article 2 refers to a death inquiry being independent, effective, reasonably prompt, sufficiently open to public scrutiny and involving the next of kin. We must do all of those and we can do that better together.