The Supreme Court has reserved judgment on an appeal by the Dublin City Coroner against a High Court decision that he may not investigate any possible role the three-in-one vaccine may have played in the death of a Dublin man. The outcome is expected to have considerable implications for the powers of coroners to investigate the causes of deaths.
The High Court upheld a challenge by the Northern Area Health Board to Dr Brian Farrell's decision to investigate any role the vaccine may have played in the death of Mr Alan Duffy (22), of Howth Road, Clontarf. Mr Duffy died on December 31st, 1995, after contracting pneumonia. He had received the three-in-one vaccine between October 1973 and February 1974.
The consultant who treated him had proposed to state on the death certificate that death was from aspirational pneumonia due to cerebral palsy. Mr Duffy's family argued that the pneumonia was due to Alan's mental handicap which in turn, they alleged, was caused by the vaccine.
An inquest remains adjourned.
The High Court ruled any conceivable link between his death and the vaccine was "too nebulous and indirect" to make it appropriate for investigation by a coroner.
In his appeal Dr Farrell argued that the court has highly confined the powers of the coroner to investigate the causes of death and has construed the Coroners' Act 1962 in a way that usurps the functions of the coroner and the coroner's jury. Mr Duffy's parents have also challenged the ruling.