NORA GERAGHTY,
Sir, - I was pleased to see a statement from Dr Moira Woods herself in the press, however brief (the Irish Times, February 20th). I can understand why her family feel that, after 10 years of living with the Medical Council inquiry, "the serious issues involved must now be addressed by others". I would like to be one of those others, as an ordinary citizen.
From reading most of what has been printed up until now, and watching and listening to what has been broadcast, one would get the impression that Dr Woods was a GP who wandered into the child sex abuse area almost by accident, and began irresponsibly throwing around wrongful allegations of abuse.
Dr Woods is a well qualified doctor. She could have decided to make a lot of money quietly from private patients. Instead, she worked in the Dublin Well Woman Centre, dealing with rape victims referred to her, before she was appointed head of the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit.
She was appointed precisely because she was the only doctor at the time with the appropriate experience, and was very highly respected by professionals in this area. This was in 1985, the dark ages when nobody would believe that such a thing could happen in Ireland.
Dr Woods and the team in the SATU rescued hundreds of children, and public awareness of this evil has been greatly advanced by her work.
Contrary to suggestions that Dr Woods worked alone, she worked with health boards, social workers, legal personnel, gardaí and psychologists. Are all those who were involved in the cases considered in this inquiry now open to the possibility of an investigation into their work, followed by media publicity?
The fact is that she has not been found guilty of false accusations of sexual abuse, but of procedural lapses on a minority of points.
The media has treated this heroic woman shamefully. I wouldn't be at all surprised if future, more enlightened, generations decided to build a statue of her in O'Connell Street. - Yours, etc.,
NORA GERAGHTY,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.