Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

While I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Andrews, tonight, where is the Minister for Health and Children?

On behalf of the Sinn Féin Deputies, including Deputy Arthur Morgan who is present, I join with Deputies and Senators from all parties, not just Opposition parties, who all share in the incredulity and outrage at the exclusion of these 35 cases from the terms of the Lourdes hospital redress scheme.

This is an all-party call on the Minister to extend by ministerial order the redress scheme so that these unfortunate victims of Dr. Michael Neary can finally effect closure on this dreadful episode in their lives. This group of profoundly damaged former patients of the discredited and struck off former obstetrician-gynaecologist at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda includes in the main women who were over 40 – some only days and months beyond their fortieth birthday - who had both their ovaries removed without just cause, leaving them physically, emotionally and psychologically damaged for the rest of their lives. It includes women who had gynaecological hysterectomies and the families of two women who died before the introduction of the redress scheme who had Caesarean hysterectomies. It includes women who were subjected to the unnecessary removal of a single ovary and it includes the cases of two infants who died as a result of gross negligence.

All these cases are fully documented and all of them are supported by substantial medical reports. The women all share a common hurt and purpose and share, too, the further pain inflicted by their exclusion under the terms of a redress scheme recommended by Judge Harding Clark. Is it Judge Harding Clark or the Minister for Health and Children who ultimately decides the terms of this publicly funded scheme? Is it a judge of the High Court or the supposedly democratically accountable Minister who makes the final determination as to who is or is not in the scheme? In this instance, in the unique and unprecedented case of Michael Neary's butchery, no woman should have been excluded. The Minister, Deputy Harney, at a meeting with Patient Focus and some of the women victims, promised that a parallel scheme would be put in place, but it never happened.

The Minister met with four of our number in this Chamber on 12 November 1998 - Deputy Johnny Brady, chairman of the Patient Focus Oireachtas support group, and Deputies James Reilly, Thomas Byrne and I. She issued her response to our appeal on behalf of the 35 cases we again represent here tonight. Her response deserves to be put on the record for its callousness alone, and I shall now read it into the record:

Dear Deputies Brady, Ó Caoláin, Byrne and Reilly,

As agreed at our meeting I have spoken to Judge Clark about extending the Redress Scheme to cover the cases mentioned by you.

Judge Clark feels strongly that there should not be an extension of the Scheme. The Scheme was designed to provide redress for cases where there was medical consensus on their egregious nature. As with all schemes there must be a cut off point.

Mary Harney, TD, Minister for Health and Children.

Judge Harding Clark "feels strongly", the Minister said. Does she, indeed? These women and their families also feel strongly and they are not alone. Standing with them and feeling just as strongly in our conviction are the combined all-party Deputies and Senators from across all the affected constituencies and beyond. We have campaigned together over several years in support of the women victims of Michael Neary, and we have neither sought, as already stated, nor created any media attention for this issue, believing that we could best serve the women's cause by quiet but persistent lobbying. We have done that at all levels, and 18 months on from the Minister, Deputy Harney's outrageous rejection, we have concluded unanimously that our campaigning must come out into the open.

Whatever response is delivered here tonight on the Minister's behalf and in the presence of a number of Michael Neary's women victims and representatives of their campaign support group, Patient Focus - I acknowledge and appreciate its work - I again call on her to accede to this further cross-party appeal. I acknowledge the excellent work done over the years by this group of Deputies and Senators, who have played an important role in helping to secure the inquiry and then the redress scheme, and who remain united in their determination to bring this tragic episode in our country's contemporary story to a close. That can be done only if the State acknowledges and then compensates the outstanding cases we represent tonight.

To the Minister, Deputy Harney, and the Minister of State, Deputy Andrews, I say that it is time to do the right thing. I ask them to do it now.

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