Noonan's `regret' is not enough

First, an apology. Writing last Saturday about Michael Noonan's involvement with the Brigid McCole case, I stated that he had…

First, an apology. Writing last Saturday about Michael Noonan's involvement with the Brigid McCole case, I stated that he had seen a letter from the Blood Transfusion Service Board threatening Mrs McCole with potentially huge costs if she pressed ahead with her High Court action before it was sent. Michael Noonan has always vehemently denied seeing this letter before it was sent and there is no evidence to suggest otherwise. It was unfair to repeat the allegation, which was made in 1997 by his successor, Brian Cowen, and I am happy to withdraw it. Unfortunately for those of us who want to see a realistic alternative to the present Government, most other concerns about Michael Noonan's handling of the McCole case cannot be dismissed so easily. In relation to the issuing of that threat to a dying woman, for example, the fact that Michael Noonan did not see the letter does not mean that he was unaware of the broad thrust of its contents.

His Department was certainly consulted by the BTSB before the letter was sent. The 1997 Macken Report on the State's legal strategy in the McCole case states: "The Department of Health was informed shortly prior to the 20th September, 1996, that the letter was to be sent and was given sight of it for observation." It also quotes a handwritten note, dated September 17th, 1996, from a Department official to the Department secretary, Jerry O'Dwyer, referring to a meeting with BTSB chairman Joe Holloway: "Mr Holloway mentioned a letter which was discussed at a meeting with you yesterday. BTSB counsel has advised that the letter be issued not later than Thursday next unless the Minister disagrees."

Since the letter was subsequently issued, it seems clear that the Department had ascertained the Minister's lack of disagreement with its contents. How that happened is still unclear. In August 1997, Brian Cowen, who was then minister for health and had access to the civil servants involved, said that "Mr Noonan was certainly given oral advice the day before the letter was sent to Mrs McCole's lawyers". If this is true, it suggests Michael Noonan knew at least in broad terms what was being done.

In recent days, as the McCole case has resurfaced in the light of Michael Noonan's new prominence, he has accepted that he "mishandled" the case and expressed what seems to be sincere regret for the hurt he caused. But he has also explained his conduct by saying he listened too much to legal advice. This, however, is deeply unconvincing. The reality is that, while he may have been unduly influenced by lawyers' tactical advice, he paid too little attention to the core of what they were telling him: that the BTSB had no defence, and that the threats it issued were just bluster. Michael Noonan knew the BTSB had no real defence against Mrs Cole's action because it had been negligent in its manufacture of the substance that killed her, anti-D. In April 1995 he had brought a memorandum to the Cabinet which included legal advice that the BTSB would probably lose any case for damages. We also know from the documents published in the Macken Report that at the time of the notorious threatening letter to Mrs McCole's solicitors, Michael Noonan had before him strong legal advice to the effect that the threat to pursue Mrs McCole for costs was an empty one.

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Three months previously, the distinguished senior counsel (later attorney general) Eoghan Fitzsimons, who had been asked to advise Michael Noonan on the issue, wrote that "Whatever the outcome (of the case) . . . it is difficult to see a court penalising this particular plaintiff in costs". Even if the State won the case, "the court may well take the view that, having regard to the nature of the case and the plaintiff's particular position, they should bear their own costs in any event".

The notion that Michael Noonan simply did what the big bad lawyers told him to do just doesn't wash. He followed his own political instincts, and they led him into a moral quagmire.

IT is tempting to say that we should forget about all of this. After all, if every minister who seriously mishandled an issue were to be forever barred from high office, the political class would be an endangered species. And if people with blood on their hands can be brought into the political process in Northern Ireland, it would be absurd to hound democratic politicians for past mistakes.

But even if the media were to leave the McCole case alone, Michael Noonan's political opponents won't. Every time he has them in a corner, they will throw it in his face.

A quick look at the Oireachtas record for last year proves the point. In May, when Noonan was putting Mary Harney under pressure on the Hugh O'Flaherty affair, she responded with the McCole case. In June, when Fine Gael was lashing into the state of the health services in the Seanad, Mairin Quill of the PDs popped up with the death of Mrs McCole. If it was like this then, what will it be like when he is leading the Opposition? He can't make all of this go away with a broad statement of regret and a dig at the lawyers. He has to tell the public what he did, what he thought and what he has learned from one of the sorriest episodes in Irish politics.