Coroners Service.

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 17 May 2005

Tuesday, 17 May 2005

Ceisteanna (10, 11)

Joe Sherlock

Ceist:

10 Mr. Sherlock asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the progress made in implementing the report of the working group on the Coroner Service published in December 2000; if his attention has been drawn to the difficulties created for coroners by the lack of appropriate penalties for those who refuse to attend when summonsed to attend inquests; when the promised legislation to update the Coroners Act will be introduced and enacted; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16154/05]

Jerry Cowley

Ceist:

28 Dr. Cowley asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if his attention has been drawn to the inadequacies and limitations of the Coroners Act in helping establish a proper course of action to address issues of very serious concern; if his attention has further been drawn to the outcome of two recent inquests relating to the deaths of two persons; the steps being taken to address the serious risk to public health resulting from such deficiencies in the Coroners Act; the progress being made towards reform of this Act; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15238/05]

Freagraí ó Béal (9 píosaí cainte)

Mr. McDowell

I propose to take Questions Nos. 10 and 28 together.

The report of the coroners review group, published in December 2000, recommended a comprehensive overhaul and modernisation of the coroner service in Ireland, with regard to the legislation governing the work of coroners, the support services available to coroners and the structural organisation of the coroner service.

The proposed new coroners Bill will seek to address the issues highlighted by the review group as well as taking account of any significant developments since then. Necessary consultations with interested parties, including consultations with the Coroners Society of Ireland, are ongoing.

I intended to publish the heads of a coroners Bill in March but unfortunately the officials who were due to work on this were engaged in the preparation of the Defamation Bill, which took longer than anticipated. The coroners Bill has been somewhat delayed but I intend to bring detailed proposals to Government shortly, providing for the comprehensive reform of the coroner service. The new legislation will replace the Coroners Act 1962 with significantly updated provisions. My proposals will address the scope of the coroners death investigations and the necessary procedures required.

My Department is also considering whether new structures will be necessary to achieve a comprehensive reform of the coroner service. There are two broad issues here, namely the future structure and administration of the coroner service, including the optimum number and nature of coroners, whether they may be full-time or part-time or a combination of both and the best approach to achieving the necessary central focus and management for the reformed coroner service.

I share the Deputies' concerns to ensure co-operation of persons when summoned to an inquest. The proposed new legislation will make provision for increased sanctions for those who refuse to co-operate with the proper conduct of an inquest. It will also end the restriction in inquests on the number of medical and other witnesses.

Mr. Costello

Would the Minister agree that the coroner service is the Cinderella of the legal services? The manner in which the service is treated is disgraceful. The report of the working group on the coroner service was published in 2000. The Minister and his predecessor promised new legislation but he now tells us this has been delayed. We must now wait and see when it will be produced and in the meantime operate under the old Coroners Act 1962.

Last month we saw where a person engaged in alternative therapy refused to attend the inquest on one of her patients. In 2001, the same person had refused to attend the inquest on another of her patients who died. The only penalty in the case of non-attendance is €6.35 and, effectively, a person intimately and profoundly involved in the life and death of a citizen is not obliged to attend the inquest on the death of that person. Does the Minister agree that this is an outrage with which he should deal? Witnesses so intimately involved must be compelled to attend inquests.

As the Minister and any of us who have attended coroners' courts know, all coroners can do is examine the physical and medical circumstances surrounding the death. They cannot investigate the circumstances themselves. This means the inquest is a limited procedure. The recommendation was for a broader and more comprehensive procedure, but the issue has been lying idle for the past five years with nothing done about it, which is a scandal.

The State Laboratory has never had adequate resources to carry out tests on time. This means that loved ones waiting for an inquest on those who died must wait longer because the State has failed to invest resources in this area. Does the Minister agree that the coroner service is the Cinderella of the legal service? This is not good enough.

Mr. McDowell

I agree with the thrust of the Deputy's remarks but not with how he expressed some of them. Reform in this area is long overdue. The Coroners Act was introduced in 1962 and even then was unduly restrictive and problematic. Now in 2005 the time is long past for reform of the coroner service.

The choice that confronted me was whether to produce what is called a break-out Bill to provide for an increase in penalties and powers of compulsion for witnesses or to proceed with a Bill which would deal with the wider second issue raised by Deputy Costello. Rightly or wrongly, I came to the view that a break-out Bill would take more parliamentary time. It was also extremely unlikely that, in my time as Minister, I would succeed in bringing through this House two separate coroners Bills. I intend to address the issues in a single Bill. I hope to have the text of that Bill before the Government and to have it in the House in the autumn of this year. I could have chosen to take the other route and introduced a two or three-section break-out Bill. However, I believe that had I done so, I would never have brought the second coroners Bill before the House and would only have done a sticking plaster job on the existing inadequate system and would not have carried out the fundamental reform necessary to upgrade the coroner service.

Mr. J. O’Keeffe

The central issue arising from the review is whether coroners' powers should be extended. What powers does the Minister think coroners should have? Deputy Costello referred to the coroner service as the Cinderella of the legal service. I note from the figures that will be discussed tomorrow at the Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights that €110,000 is the total annual allocation for the coroner service, which certainly leaves it in the halfpenny place. If we really want to give the service a role and function, it must be funded.

Mr. McDowell

The figure of €110,000 is misleading because many coroners' salaries come from Departments other than mine. On the issue of the powers of coroners, in the past we had an overly timid approach to their powers. As the Deputy will recall, when suicide was a crime, it was held by the courts that a coroner could not find that suicide was the cause of death because it was an imputation of criminality against the person who committed suicide. That was an absurdity because it turned a limited jurisdiction to investigate the circumstances of a death into a ridiculous charade with regard to how to deal with a suicide case, cases of which are very sensitive from the point of view of the family etc.

Mr. J. O’Keeffe

I want to know about their powers now.

Mr. McDowell

There should be a broader power than simply saying, for example, that somebody died of asphyxiation. The analogy for a coroners court is not an adversarial court; it is more like a standing tribunal into unnatural deaths or suspected unnatural deaths. A tribunal can make a finding which is of significance and which the public can understand, but it does not have legal consequence in terms of conviction. People do not stand convicted or whatever on foot of a tribunal's decision. On the other hand, the public expects to get the full facts and truth rather than a narrow, medical cause of death verdict. I agree with both Deputies that we must address the issue and I intend to do so.

Mr. Costello

Will the Minister clarify the situation regarding resources for the State Laboratory? Will it get enough?

Mr. McDowell

I share Deputy Costello's concern that on occasions the sufferings of people whose loved ones have died have been aggravated significantly by the fact that pharmacological tests are conducted simply to exclude the possibility of overdose in circumstances where it is only a technical possibility. These people must wait months to receive the results of those tests before a proper post mortem can conclude. I agree these tests should be capable of being expedited in a manner fair to everybody involved.