The Department of Justice was urged by An Garda Síochána in early 2003 to stop the then State pathologist, Prof John Harbison, from taking on new cases, writes Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent
This was confirmed by the department last night after Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte raised fears in the Dáil that convictions that relied on Prof Harbison's evidence could be thrown into doubt.
Prof Harbison was unavailable due to illness to give evidence in the Brian Murphy manslaughter retrial in which the State entered a nolle prosequi this week.
The Department of Justice said that in January 2003, gardaí suggested to a senior official of the department "that Prof Harbison should not take on new cases given that he was getting on in years and that murder cases were generally taking a considerable time to reach trial.
"Prof Harbison was then aged about 68 years. Prof Harbison subsequently retired and performed no new autopsies after that time."
The department added: "At all times he has been lucid and has continued to give evidence in pre-2003 cases until recently. Our understanding is that he recently withdrew from the Brian Murphy manslaughter case on the advice of his doctor."
On Monday, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell said the department had been told "a few months ago" that Dr Harbison's ill-health would affect his ability to give evidence in cases where he had carried out examinations.
In a statement released on January 20th, 2003, the Cabinet said it had appointed Dr Marie Cassidy to succeed Prof Harbison "who has retired from the position of State pathologist on age grounds". But Prof Harbison told the Mayo coroner in March 2003 that he was still the State pathologist.
Talks had taken place between Prof Harbison and the Department of Justice in 2002 and 2003 about what pension arrangements might be made after it emerged that he had no pension in place.
Once he stood aside from carrying out new autopsies, the department agreed that he would be paid a consultancy retainer to "finish out the cases in which he had been involved" prior to his retirement.
In the Dáil yesterday, Mr Rabbitte said the conflict between Prof Harbison's evidence in the case of Brian Murphy, who died after a fracas outside Club Anabel in Dublin in August 2000, and a statement given later by Dr Cassidy, raised questions about Prof Harbison's capacity to conduct postmortems around and about that time and to give evidence in those trials.