Former GP retrial due this year

THE RETRIAL of former GP Paschal Carmody on deception charges is set to go ahead later this year in Ennis.

At Ennis Circuit Court yesterday, Stephen Coughlan, for the State, said there was “serious concern” on the State’s side that the case would proceed this year.

The 11 outstanding counts relate to Mr Carmody facing charges of obtaining €30,854 by deception from three terminally ill cancer patients who received photodynamic therapy (PDT) at the East Clinic in Killaloe, Co Clare in 2001-20002.

Mr Coughlan said the State and Mr Carmody’s legal team had agreed that the case could go ahead this year.

Acting as agent for Mr Carmody’s solicitor Michael Staines, solicitor Jenny Fitzgibbon said it had been agreed that the case could go ahead over three weeks from November 30th.

However, Judge Carroll Moran said the trial could only go ahead subject to a judge being available to hear it. He adjourned the case to October 19th. “We should know by then on the issue of a judge,” he said.

Earlier this year, Mr Carmody (62) Ballycuggeran, Killaloe, failed in a High Court judicial review challenging the Director of Public Prosecutions’s decision to retry him on the 11 outstanding deception charges.

The State failed in its own application to have the case transferred from Co Clare to Dublin.

At Ennis Circuit Court in July 2008, after a four-week long trial, a jury found Mr Carmody not guilty on six charges of deception and failed to reach a verdict on the remaining 11 charges.

Of the outstanding charges, Mr Carmody is facing seven deception charges totalling €9,610 in relation to a 14-year-old Co Wexford boy, Conor O’Sullivan, who died in November 2002.

Mr Carmody has been on bail since the trial ended in July 2008.