Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

I, too, welcome the opportunity on behalf of the Labour Party to participate in this cross-party motion tonight, which in many ways in unusual, but it is absolutely justified in the case of the women excluded from the Lourdes hospital redress scheme. I also speak on behalf of my colleagues in the Labour Party in the north-east.

Basically, there is no justification for excluding these 35 women who suffered just as much as all those included in the scheme. This redress has been a long time coming. The issue was first raised by two nurses in 1998 and Dr. Michael Neary was eventually struck off the medical register in September 2003. Judge Maureen Harding Clark produced the Lourdes hospital inquiry report in January 2006 and the redress scheme was subsequently established.

I have no doubt there was no intention, in setting up the scheme, to exclude women who suffered in this way. Given that this is a cross-party motion, I hope we will get a positive result for those women and that they will be included in the scheme. I wish to quote Judge Harding Clark from page 34 of the report:

The story of Dr. Neary's fall from grace is one of enormous tragedy for the hospital at which he worked for 25 years, for the staff who worked with and supported him, and especially for the women who entered the maternity hospital to face the joy of a new baby and who returned home to recuperate from a hysterectomy.

These are the women we are focusing on tonight. I welcome the work of Patient Focus and those in attendance in the Visitors Gallery to witness this debate. Essentially, it is the same cohort of women. I am thinking of some of the correspondence from women who were outside the age category by literally only a couple of weeks or who were excluded from the scheme for one reason or another. This should not be because they all suffered in the same way. It was a time when practices were tolerated that should never have been and they happened, unfortunately, in this hospital.

These women were the victims and the redress scheme should be inclusive and comprehensive. I urge the Minister of State who is responding tonight to take the spirit of this cross-party motion on board as it represents not only the people of that region, but all right thinking citizens in this country.

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