Health Minister ‘hopes’ Shine inquiry will uncover why abuse went unchecked
By Bairbre Holmes, Press Association
The Health Minister has said she “hopes” a Commission of Investigation into disgraced surgeon and paedophile Michael Shine will be able to answer why nobody stopped his abuse.
Shine, aged 94, was convicted of assaulting nine boys at two trials in 2017 and 2019, and has been accused of abusing hundreds more.
He had worked as a senior registrar at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda from 1964 to 1995.
Victims’ group Dignity4Patients had called for a public inquiry to probe how claims of decades of abuse at the hospital and his private practice were handled.
The Government tasked Lorcan Staines SC with conducting a scoping exercise into Shine.
His report, published on Thursday, recommended the commencement of a six-phase Commission of Investigation which should start “immediately”.
Speaking to RTÉ radio on Friday, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said a Commission of Investigation will enable a “structured” and “forensic” analysis of who knew and did not know what was happening, which documents were and were not available, and what the state did and should have done.
“The most important thing,” she said, is that it “will give the men an opportunity to have their voice heard”.
“There hasn’t been light shone on this before in this way,” she added.
She quoted victims who said “the dogs on the street knew about this”, and said: “There are many questions to be answered that haven’t been answered by the state.”
Asked by Morning Ireland presenter Gavin Jennings if the commission would be able to answer why nobody stopped Shine’s abuse, Ms MacNeill said: “I hope so”.
“I don’t want to preempt it, but I think it’s important that we give it the opportunity to do that.”
She emphasised that “it takes a lot” to convince her of the need for Commissions of Investigations or tribunals as they can “go on for many years”.
Still, she said: “This is of such significance, such public significance, and it hasn’t been investigated by the state in the way I think it should have.”
It was “a whole society that enabled” Shine’s abuse, she said: “So there is knowledge out there, and I think it’s really important, as the men have asked to be listened to.”
She said where there are “400 men that we know about”, she added there may be others “who have left Ireland” or “men who are living in Ireland, who know that this happened to them, and know it every day, and have never had an opportunity to tell their story at all”.
Asked if victims would be offered compensation at the end of the process, MacNeill said many men have already taken cases against the religious order responsible for the hospital, which were settled in “nearly all cases”.
“But as the men have said, that’s not enough; that’s not the point in many cases.
“The point is who knew about this and enabled it to continue to happen to so many, many more boys over decades.”
She praised Staines’ work and said he had constructed the commission in an “intelligent and careful” way.
“He has suggested six modules that would run concurrently to be able to separate out the issues and then give this very important opportunity for their truth to be told.”
