Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

On 3 March 2006, proceedings against a Cork doctor alleging 212 cases of serious sexual assault were stopped by the Cork Circuit Court. These charges related to a period from 1966 to 1995 and affected in one way or another hundreds of women in Cork. A total of 600 complaints were received from former patients of this doctor and 145 patients made formal statements to the Garda. People do not realise how difficult it is to make a formal statement about a sexual assault, particularly against someone who has been trusted for a lifetime.

The case was removed from the criminal list because the European Court of Human Rights ruled in December 2005 that this doctor's rights to a speedy trial had been violated. In other words, the case was delayed and this violated the accused man's human rights. It is not our job to second-guess the courts and it is not my intention to do so today — everyone is entitled to due process. Here, however, we have a situation where if a decision of the European Court is not challenged by 15 March 2006 there will be no closure for the hundreds of Cork women who have been directly or indirectly affected by this case.

The delay that led to the collapse of this trial was not exclusive to any one side but the European Court found that there were several periods of excessive delay which are partially or completely attributable to the authorities. From November 1997 to February 2000 the case was mostly taken up by disputes as to discovery and the protracted nature of the discovery process was partially the State's responsibility. It did not allow the applicant to see what it had and he did not allow the State to see what he had in evidence; privilege was claimed by both sides. From February 2000 until January 2002 the case was further delayed by the State filing affidavits just before the date originally fixed for the hearing.

From January 2002 until March 2003 the case, which began in 1995, was further delayed because it took 13 months for the High Court to deliver its reserved judgment. The court was deciding whether the accused had a case in respect of delay and it sat on the decision for 13 months. In this instance, the European Court said this delay was solely attributed to the State and the Government did not attempt to explain this delay to the court.

Hearing was finally listed for September 2003 but there was a further unacceptable delay of 12 months while the prosecution contacted the complainants to see if they wanted to proceed. People do not make complaints if they do not want to proceed and if a person does not want to proceed, he or she would contact the Director of Public Prosecutions. The court stated:

The prohibition on prosecution was lifted in September 2003. Even if it was reasonable for the authorities to await the outcome of the appeal to the Supreme Court, they could, in the meantime, have contacted all the complainants to verify that they were still willing to proceed. In any event, while there were numerous complainants, it is not persuasively explained why a year was required for this verification process. Given the delay until then, there is no justification found for the authorities delay of one year in reopening the proceedings following the judgment of the Supreme Court.

The final date for the Government to appeal this decision to the European Court is next Wednesday, 15 March. If this decision is not appealed, and at this late juncture it seems unlikely, then this case will not go any further. This is not a satisfactory situation and many questions will go unanswered.

I do not know how effective a whistleblowers' charter would be in addressing this situation but this boiled down to one woman going into a Garda station and making a complaint. That woman, who has never been publicly identified, must have been very brave. If there is negligence or worse, however, I would like to think that the person who brought this to the public attention would be protected against litigation or victimisation. There is every possibility that this will happen. Too frequently people are feeling let down by officialdom, and more often than not those people are women.

Whistleblowers are not just people who expose wrongdoing in the medical field. I was looking at a case in England where a company supplying water had deliberately built into its calculation an increase that would make it additional millions. One man stood up against the company and said it was wrong.

I do not normally do this but I thought Deputy Eamon Ryan's contribution tonight was excellent and Deputy Catherine Murphy was, as usual, incisive. I am sorry that Deputy Finian McGrath left directly after speaking but he was so full of vainglorious pomposity as to be not worth listening to. I have never heard him make a contribution in this House where he did not talk about "I, I, I". It is "I did this, I did that, I totally opposed". His job is to represent the people, not to feed his own ego.

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