Gardaí will send a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions after arresting and questioning two men about an attack on a patient in the accident and emergency department of a Cork hospital last month.
Detectives arrested an 18-year-old man and a 23-year-old man under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act for questioning about the assault on a man in the Mercy University Hospital on January 28th.
Both men were arrested at their homes on the south side of Cork city yesterday morning and brought to the Bridewell Garda station for questioning, where they were held for several hours before being released without charge.
The arrests are the latest development in the investigation into the incident which happened when a man in his 20s was waiting to be treated in the A&E department at the Mercy University Hospital at around 4 a.m. on January 28th. The man had been injured in a row in Cork city centre earlier and was waiting to be assessed when two men, armed with a baseball bat and a pepper spray canister, burst into the A&E department and attacked him.
The two men attacked the man with the baseball bat and when they were confronted by security staff, released the pepper spray canister.
A number of nursing staff had to be treated in the hospital canteen after getting the spray in their eyes.
A security man who challenged the assailants was also attacked and suffered a head injury that required six staples while six patients had to be evacuated from the area and the A&E department had to be closed for four hours.
A&E consultant Dr Chris Luke, who was on duty at the time, said it was the worst incident he had experienced in his 23 years working hospitals in Ireland and the UK and described those responsible as "urban savages".