TDs in calls to reinstate advocacy worker

KITTY HOLLAND

MINISTER OF State for Foreign Affairs Joe Costello has expressed his “extreme” concern at the dismissal of a “whistleblower” from her advocacy role in the mental health service.

Other TDs have called for her reinstatement and an investigation into whether the Health Service Executive or Louise Bayliss’s employer, the Irish Advocacy Network, decided on the early termination of her contract.

Ms Bayliss expressed concern about her situation last night and said she would be “very disappointed” if it emerged the network had chosen to dismiss her.

“I had been assuming it was the HSE all along but then I heard on the radio [yesterday] the man from the HSE saying it was nothing to do with them.”

Ms Bayliss, who had been training as an advocate with the network, drew attention to the closure of an “open” unit for female patients in St Brendan’s Hospital, Grangegorman, Dublin over Christmas, the separation of the patients from each other over the holiday period and their consequent distress.

She highlighted her concerns on the RTÉ radio programme Liveline in early December and was removed from ward work some days later. She was told she would finish her training before returning to the wards.

She resumed her training last week and had a small number of classes left.

Last Tuesday, however, the network said there were insufficient resources to finish her training so she was being let go.

Speaking on the RTÉ radio programme This Week yesterday she said: “When I was told ‘They don’t want you back on the wards’, I asked for clarification. I asked who ‘they’ was, and I was told it was the HSE.”

On the same programme, Martin Rogan, assistant national director of mental health services with the HSE, said “at no level” did the executive seek Ms Bayliss’s dismissal or disciplining.

He would be “very disappointed” if anyone in the advocacy network had implied it had. The network too has said the HSE had no role in the “management or supervision” of its staff.

People Before Profit TD, Richard Boyd Barrett, who has championed her case, and Derek Keating TD, said Ms Bayliss should be reinstated in her job.

Mr Costello said the HSE “should ensure that if her dismissal was linked to whistleblowing on patients’ care, she should be reinstated”.