Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: Scoping Exercise for Michael Shine Survivors

Today, with statements on Michael Shine, and much more importantly, his victims and survivors, I want to state from the outset that the abuse of trust and attack on the dignity of patients, the dignity and the person of patients, by Michael Shine was a terrible betrayal of his patients, of the patients. I have the deepest sympathy and concern for all of the victims. I want to acknowledge the many, many people affected, including several I've been fortunate enough to meet. Reports suggest that the total number of those impacted is in the high hundreds, and it ranges across a huge age span. These individuals have demonstrated remarkable bravery as they continue their pursuit of justice for the serious wrongdoing they experienced. Those individuals who are not necessarily involved in that campaign and who have suffered in silence also have demonstrated great bravery in continuing their lives in remarkable ways, notwithstanding what has occurred to them, what has happened to them. Michael Shine, a former surgeon, worked in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda from 1964 until 1995. In March 1995, the CEO of the hospital was made aware of a complaint of abuse against Michael Shine by the North Eastern Health Board. Michael Shine took leave while the complaint was addressed and subsequently retired in October 1995. By the time of his retirement, he was already the subject of multiple allegations of sexual abuse, going back as far as the 1970s. In 1995, the matters in the hospital were the subject of an independent review chaired by Dr Miriam Hederman O'Brien, which was reported in 1996. The review was established by the board at the hospital, and its terms of reference included to examine a report to the hospital management board on the hospital's response to the complaints of sexual abuse made against a consultant formerly employed by the hospital. Dr Hederman O'Brien's report set out the chronology of events at the hospital, recommendations on the prevention of sexual abuse and procedures for handling complaints. Following the recommendations, the health service made substantial enhancements to its procedures for preventing and addressing claims of sexual abuse, and those included establishing clear practices and protocols to handle such instances of horrendous abuse. In October 2009, on a footer request from Dignity for Patients, the then Minister for Health and Children announced the establishment of an independent non-statutory review, the Drogheda Review. The purpose of that review was to advise on whether a further investigation into the procedures and practices at the hospital during that period would be of significant public benefit in helping to improve best practice guidelines and policies. That review was carried out by retired High Court Judge T. C. Smith, who submitted his report to the then Minister in September 2010. The report recommended that a further investigation should not be held, and that in order to avoid prejudicing current or future civil or criminal cases, the report should not be published. Dignity for Patients has been campaigning on behalf of the victims for many, many years, and it is an organisation that has long sought an inquiry into sexual abuse in patients, and in the past year has sought that in a more formal way. In April, I met with Dignity for Patients, and as part of that engagement programme, I asked them to share with me their areas of concern and those areas that they felt could best be addressed by further inquiry. In their response, they detailed their call for a statutory investigation, highlighted specific issues that they felt were yet unaddressed by other mechanisms, and an opportunity to have a space for the voice of victims and survivors. At that time, I committed to engaging with my Government colleagues on how best to provide answers to the issues raised by Dignity for Patients on behalf of their victims. I met again with the group on 24 November, and I remain committed to them, and I remain committed to identifying an appropriate and bespoke response to the issues raised and the needs identified by them. It is very important to say that we have been working—I certainly believe we have been working in great partnership with Dignity for Patients, a group for whom I have enormous respect and regard, both as to the way in which they represent the advocates and survivors and victims, but also the complete professionalism with which they approach their work. Again, on 26 November, the Government agreed that a time-bound scoping exercise would be undertaken by an independent person in response to the requests from Dignity for Patients on behalf of the victims and survivors of Michael Shine. For decades, victims and survivors have carried trauma and have sought recognition and accountability. Their strength, their willingness to continue pressing for truth has, I hope, met with more compassion, with seriousness and with action. There is a substantial body of work involved, including examination of all previous reports, relevant court findings, hospital and institutional actions, and the historical context of abuse. I am so glad that we have had this very structured engagement with Dignity for Patients and with victims and advocates to ensure that they experience their expectations and their needs are fully reflected, and to try to work out what are the outstanding issues where we believe that we can provide further answers, what information is held by the state in that regard, and how do we approach this in the most impactful, most contained but impactful way, and how, within that, do we give the appropriate voice for survivors? I announced the appointment of Mr Lorcan Staines, Senior Counsel, as the independent facilitator to conduct this scoping exercise following engagement with the Attorney General. Mr Staines commenced his work on 3 March. The scoping exercise will run for up to 16 weeks. He has been finalising the terms of reference for the scoping exercise in direct consultation with Dignity for Patients and, indeed, with the Department of Health on the other side. Mr Staines has two decades' experience of criminal, regulatory and administrative law, and he is widely recognised for his specialist work with victims and vulnerable witnesses. It is important as well to say that, during the process, Dignity for Patients will have the support of expert advisers, including Maeve Lewis, former CEO of One and Four, and Professor Phil Scraton, and a specialist in inquests and inquiry modes, as well as their solicitor, Dame Ruth Bracknell of Phoenix Law. Government has emphasised the need for the process to be survivor-centred, and Mr Staines will receive all necessary supports to ensure that a victim-centred, trauma-informed, human rights-based approach underpins the scoping exercise and any subsequent processes. I have asked that the well-being of victims and survivors would remain central throughout this process. The final report and recommendations will be submitted to Government to guide the development of an appropriate and bespoke response to the issues raised and to the needs identified by Dignity for Patients. I do want to emphasise the paramount importance of the lived experience of those affected by Mr Staines's work, and it is vitally important that he gets the opportunity to engage with victims and survivors and for them to have their voices heard at this stage, and to create a process that enables their voice to be heard in the future. In order for that stakeholder engagement to begin, a lawful basis to process personal data for those exercises was required in alignment with Article 6, subsection E, Article 9.2.1 and Article 10 of the General Data Protection Regulation. In accordance with those articles, the making of regulations under the Data Protection Act was necessary to give domestic legal effect to this basis, to ensure legal certainty, foreseeability and to place appropriate safeguards on a statutory footing. No processing could commence until that statutory framework was in place. On 24 March, the Houses approved the Data Protection Regulation for the scoping exercise, and I signed it on 9 April. Our commitment is to ensure that a process that recognises the suffering experienced, honours the voices of victims and survivors and seeks a path towards truth and healing. I really do want to again acknowledge the courage of victims and survivors whose experiences have brought us to this point. Their voices must remain central as this work continues. The scoping exercise and the subsequent next steps will proceed with independence, with compassion and with a trauma-informed approach. I really do want to pay tribute to the many, many hundreds of men across Meath and Louth who have been impacted, and who I know will be impacted yet again today as we discuss this. I acknowledge their work, their dignity, the people who have provided a broad support network to them, the people who have brought us to this point, their advocates. I do acknowledge that we are more than halfway through a facilitative process, and I really do believe and I hope that the House will agree with me that this has been a one-based and genuine collaboration and a real effort to try to find a mechanism to answer the questions that can possibly be answered. I hope that through this process that we will find some measure of voice and some measure of resolution for those issues that can find resolution, though I always worry that no matter what way we structure it or no matter what we do, that we will disappoint or that some people won't find the justice that they hope to seek throughout any process. But we are here to try to facilitate this. We are here to try to give this voice and to try to give this respect and this dignity that I believe has not been provided to date, either certainly not in the original experience within the hospital and in the process since then, and I don't think anybody would disagree with me on that point. I really want to thank the groups for their ongoing collaboration. I want to apologise to members of the House and to anybody watching that I cannot stay. There is a Cabinet meeting which began at half four, it's now 20 to five and I have to attend the Cabinet meeting, but Minister O'Donnell is here with me and I assure you that I will be reading back the contributions made by all deputies. I know that we have spoken about this in part in the past in this House and I know I've spoken with many of you individually, but I do just want to apologise to anybody who is watching that it's not possible for me to stay because of a Cabinet meeting. I thank the House for facilitating statements at this time. I know that it's something that we will continue to discuss. There is ongoing work that I'm not in a position to discuss today because some of it has to go back to Cabinet and obviously I can't breach Cabinet confidentiality, but just to acknowledge that the work is continuing in the same collaborative way with the Dignity for Patients group and their representatives that has brought us to this point.