I welcome the opportunity to address the House on statements on Michael Shine, and much more importantly, his victims and survivors. The abuse of trust and attack on the dignity and the person of patients by Michael Shine was a terrible betrayal. I have the deepest sympathy and concern for all the victims. I acknowledge the many people affected, including several I have 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 have also demonstrated great bravery in continuing their lives in remarkable ways, notwithstanding 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 him 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 of the hospital and its terms of reference included “to examine and 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, and recommendations on the prevention of sexual abuse and on 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 concerns in such instances of horrendous abuse. In October 2009, on foot of requests from Dignity4Patients, the then Minister for Health and Children announced the establishment of an independent non-statutory review, the Drogheda review. The purpose of the 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, Mr. Justice T.C. Smyth, 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.
Dignity4Patients has been campaigning on behalf of the victims for many years. It is an organisation that has long sought an inquiry into the sexual abuse of patients and in the past year has sought that in a more formal way. In April, I met with representatives of Dignity4Patients and as part of that engagement programme, I asked them to share with me their areas of concern and those areas they felt could best be addressed by further inquiries. In their response, they detailed their call for a statutory investigation, highlighted specific issues they felt were as yet unaddressed by other mechanisms, and sought 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 to best provide answers to the issues raised by Dignity4Patients on behalf of the victims. I met with the group again on Monday, 24 November and I remain committed to the group and to identifying an appropriate and bespoke response to the issues raised and the needs identified by it. It is very important to say that we have - or I certainly hope we have - been working in great partnership with Dignity4Patients, a group for which I have enormous respect and regard, both as to the way in which it represents the advocates, survivors and victims but also the complete professionalism with which it approaches its work.
On 26 November, the Government agreed that a time-bound scoping exercise be undertaken by an independent person in response to requests from Dignity4Patients on behalf of victims and survivors of Michael Shine. For decades, victims and survivors of Michael-Shine have carried trauma and have sought recognition and accountability. Their strength and willingness to continue pressing for the truth will, I hope, be met with more compassion, seriousness and 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 the abuse. I am glad we have had this very structured engagement with Dignity4Patients and with victims and advocates to ensure their experiences, expectations and their needs are fully reflected and to try to work out what the outstanding issues are to which we can provide further answers, what information is held by the State in that regard, how we approach this in the most contained but impactful way, and how, within that, we give the appropriate voice for survivors.
I announced the appointment of Mr. Lorcan Staines SC as the independent facilitator to conduct this scoping exercise following engagement with the Attorney General. Mr. Staines commenced his work on 3 March and this 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 Dignity4Patients and with the Department for Health on the other side. Mr. Staines has two decades of experience of criminal, regulatory and administrative law and he is widely recognised for his specialist work with victims and vulnerable witnesses. It is also important to say that during the process, Dignity4Patients will have the support of expert advisers, including Maeve Lewis, former CEO of One in Four, and Professor Phil Scraton, a specialist in inquests and inquiry models, as well as their solicitor, Diarmuid Brecknell 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 a victim-centred, trauma-informed, human-rights based approach underpins the scoping exercise and any subsequent statutory processes. I have asked that the well-being of victims and survivors 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 Dignity4Patients.
I emphasise the paramount importance of the lived experiences of those affected by Mr. Staines’s work. It is vitally important that he get the opportunity to engage with victims and survivors, for them to have their voices heard at this stage, and to create a process that enables their voice be heard in the future. In order for that stakeholder engagement to begin, a lawful basis to process personal data for these exercises was required in alignment with Article 6(1)(e), Article 9(2)(i) and Article 10 of the general data protection regulation, GDPR. In accordance with these articles, the making of regulations under the Data Protection Act 2018 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 the necessary statutory framework was in place. On 24 March, the Houses approved the data protection regulations for this scoping exercise and I signed them on 9 April. Our commitment is to ensure a process that recognises the suffering experienced, honours the voices of victims and survivors, and seeks a path towards truth and healing. I 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. This scoping exercise and the subsequent next steps will proceed with independence, compassion and a trauma-informed approach.
I really wish to pay tribute to the hundreds of men across counties Meath and Louth who have been impacted and who will be impacted yet again as we discuss this. I acknowledge their work and their dignity and I acknowledge the people who have provided a broad support network to them and the advocates who have brought us to this point. We are more than halfway through a facilitative process. I believe, and hope the House agrees with me, that this has been a process based on genuine collaboration and a real effort to try to find a mechanism to answer the questions that can possibly be answered. I hope through this process that we will find some measure of a voice for those issues that a resolution can be found for, though I always worry that no matter what way we structure it or no matter what we do we will disappoint, or that some people will not find the justice they hope to seek throughout any process. However, we are here to try to facilitate this. We are here to try to give this voice, respect and dignity that has not been provided to date, certainly not in the original experience within the hospital or in the process since then. I do not think anybody would disagree with me on that point.
I thank the groups for their ongoing collaboration. I apologise to Members and to anybody watching as I cannot stay. A Cabinet meeting began at 4.30 p.m. It is now 4.40 p.m., and I have to attend. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, is here with me and I assure Members that I will be reading back the contributions made by all of them. We have spoken about this in part in the past in this House and I have spoken with many of Members individually, but I wish to apologise to anybody who is watching that it is not possible for me to stay due to the Cabinet meeting. I thank the House for facilitating statements at this time. It is something we will continue to discuss. There is ongoing work that I am not in a position to discuss today because some of it has to go back to Cabinet. I cannot breach Cabinet confidentiality but I acknowledge that the work is continuing with the Dignity4Patients group and its representatives in the same collaborative way that has brought us to this point.
