Meeting with health board fails to ease pain of families of children killed in crash

Families of four children killed in a minibus crash in 1998 say they are unhappy with a meeting held this week to answer questions about the disposal of their organs.

On Thursday the four families met the East Coast Area Health Board and learned that their children's brains had been cremated abroad after the accident outside Arklow, Co Wicklow. However, the medical authorities were unable to tell them if the organs had been cremated in Britain or the Netherlands.

"We are no wiser now. In fact we are more confused than ever," Mrs Mary Byrne said.

Mrs Byrne lost two daughters in the minibus crash which also claimed the lives of the busdriver and two other children.

In May the families learned that their children's brains had been removed as part of the post-mortem process and sent to another hospital for more detailed examination to determine the cause of death.

"All sorts of questions have been left unanswered. Who authorised this? Why weren't we given the choice to bury the organs ourselves? Why wasn't our permission sought? But when we asked these questions, the only answer we got was that it was standard practice," Mrs Byrne said.

She said the meeting was extremely upsetting for all the families. "It's like it's all happening all over again. All we want is to find out exactly what happened so that we can put it to rest," she said.

A spokeswoman for the East Coast Area Health Board said the board was now trying to establish where the cremations were carried out.

"St Columcille's is working with the other hospital involved to establish this definitively and will be in contact with the families as soon as we have this information," the spokeswoman said.

Asked why the families were not notified when the organs were retained, the spokeswoman said the East Coast Area Health Board did not want to cause further distress to the families at that time.

Mrs Byrne said the families would be seeking another meeting with the board to get some answers to their questions.

She said the group's legal team may attend the next meeting as the previous meeting had been so traumatic for the families.