Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A year ago, sadly, Andrew Gearns passed away. I want to take this opportunity to express my condolences to the Gearns family. One year on, his family are still waiting for an inquest and they feel it would help them to move forward with their grief. Andrew's brother Evan contacted me, very upset and frustrated at the length of time the family are waiting for an inquest.

Unfortunately, there are too many families like the Gearns family in Cork. This is not the fault of the coroner or his staff, who do Trojan work despite being under-resourced and understaffed. Cork Coroners Court deals with a quarter of the cases that the Dublin City Coroner deals with yet has only two staff compared to Dublin's 24. The courtroom they used pre-Covid is now an office to facilitate social distancing and the coroner has to fit in inquests where he can. Without proper funding, the coroner cannot do his job and families like the Gearns are left waiting. Surely, the Minister of State can recognise the role she has to play in this.

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