Coroners service running on a ‘wing and a prayer’, says incoming society president

Vivienne Clarke

The incoming president of the Coroners Society of Ireland, Dr Denis McCauley, has said the service was being run on a “wing and a prayer”, and pathologists were now walking away from the service.

Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Today with David McCullagh show and Newstalk’s Claire Byrne show, Dr McCauley pointed out that the fee pathologists were paid (€300) had not been increased in 20 years.

The situation was complicated by the fact that it was operated by three different bodies – the HSE, the Department of Justice and local authorities, he said. “It is a perfect storm for procrastination.”

Dr McCauley explained that 95 per cent of post mortems in Ireland were carried out in HSE buildings by HSE consultants.

“Paradoxically, they're also paid by the local authorities, but everything is directed from the Department of Justice. Now, the problem is that the pathologists have decided that they're too busy.”

The service is also divided into three – the adult service, the children’s service, for children over three months and the perinatal service.

“Each of those are under great pressure. I was expecting the children's service to be the first to give problems, but it is the adult service that is giving problems. We've been warning the government about this for the last 15 years.

“They've really done nothing about it. They will give stock answers saying, 'oh, there's a PM advisory group that's been up and running for six or seven, for five years', and it's really not working.”

Dr McCauley said there were only two consultants in the country carrying out post mortems on children. “When one of those retires, I don't think we'll have a service.”

At present 6,000 post mortems are carried out each year in Ireland by pathologists all over the country. Dr McCauley said that increasingly younger pathologists were saying they were too busy to perform post mortems and they found the court system “too adversarial”.

Delays in post mortems added to the grief for families. There were huge discrepancies around the country in the length of time it takes for post mortems, he added.

“When somebody dies in Donegal today, they will have a post-mortem done tomorrow morning. The body will be released at lunchtime.

"If it's in Dublin or some other areas or Waterford, it may be done once a week, so that family is going to have to wait a week. And when you have the situation where children are being moved needlessly from Dublin to Cork to have the PM done, that's not appropriate.”

At present the service costs €2 million a year, but it should cost €10 million. “I'm saying, this is government work. Come on, stop telling me what you can't do. Just sort it out.”