The CEO of the Dignity4Patients organisation has described a meeting with the Minister for Health to discuss a scoping inquiry into former consultant Michael Shine as “very positive”.
The organisation had been invited to meet the Minister and officials to discuss the terms of reference for the scoping inquiry, Adrienne Reilly told RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland.
It is understood a memorandum is to be brought to the Cabinet by Jennifer Carroll MacNeill in the near future that would include provisions for the scoping inquiry to run for 16 weeks, with a senior counsel to be appointed before Christmas.
This could ultimately lead to a full statutory inquiry, for which victims’ groups have been campaigning.
READ MORE
Shine worked as a consultant at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth, and was later found guilty of sexual assaults on nine boys.
Hundreds of men claim that they were abused, over decades, by the former surgeon, who served three years in prison. Shine worked at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital from 1964 until 1995.
Following the meeting with the Minister, Dignity4Patients consulted with some of the 390 victims it represents. Ms Reilly said a number of issues relating to information gathering and a “victim-centred arrangement” would form the foundation for “some type of statutory inquiry”.
“Judging from the interactions we’ve had with the Minister throughout the course of this year and in the meeting yesterday, we are entering all of this in very good faith and we have no reason not to believe that there isn’t going to be positive outcomes from us going into this process,” she said.
Why are people calling for an inquiry into Micheal Shine?
“It was a very lovely and engaging and receptive meeting yesterday where we could actually discuss real things that were brought to the table on behalf of the victims, like we’ve always said, to look at the institutions that failed them, to look at how the abuse was allowed to go on for so long and to address some of the issues like the Smith Review, why that remains locked up and can we get to look at some of the issues around that review, all those type of things.”
Ms Reilly said there needed to be an in-depth review of what happened from 1977 when the first case of abuse against Shine was reported.
“And we also need for the victims to have a voice and for them to be believed and that is the main thing, that they want people to know what happened to them, who failed them and who should have protected them. And that’s essentially what all statutory inquiries do.”
All the details of a “bespoke inquiry” can be negotiated, she added. “These things are all negotiable around the idea of a bespoke inquiry, and nobody has any interest in this running on for years.”
Shine retired in 1995 from Lourdes Hospital after three decades of working in Drogheda. He was struck off the medical register in 2008 after the Medical Council found he had abused his professional position by making sexual advances toward three patients.
He was first investigated by gardaí in the 1990s.
In 2012 more than 100 former patients who claimed they were sexually abused by him agreed to a settlement, believed to exceed €8 million, with the Medical Missionaries of Mary, which owned Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital.
