The North Eastern Health Board was advised by solicitors to retain a private investigator when it heard two years ago that a number of people, including the former Drogheda obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Michael Neary, might have obtained confidential documents to which they were not entitled.
Details of the advice provided to the health board was inadvertently sent in recent days by the Lourdes Hospital Inquiry to a woman who made a submission to the inquiry.
That woman, Ms Sheila Martin of the Louth Meath Health Group, received it and other confidential documents when she asked the inquiry for a copy of her submission to it after her own copy was seized during a Garda raid on her home two weeks ago. On the same day the home of Dr Neary was also raided by the Garda.
The Lourdes Hospital Inquiry is investigating the high level of Caesarean Hysterectomies performed by Dr Neary at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda. He worked there from 1974 to 1998.
He was struck off by the Medical Council last year after he was found guilty of professional misconduct over the unnecessary removal of the wombs of 10 patients.
The letter from BCM Hanby Wallace Solicitors, written in December 2002, to the deputy chief executive of the health board, Dr Ambrose McLoughlin, refers to the board having every reason to be concerned that Dr Neary, Ms Martin and another person may be "obtaining confidential documentation" to which they were not entitled, but it said there was no firm evidence of the source of their documentation.
"It may well be that when more complete information comes to hand you might be reassured that nothing untoward is happening," the letter adds before continuing: "The only way I believe you can obtain the information necessary to make an appropriate decision in this case is to retain the services of a competent and capable private investigator and I suggest you do this as a matter of urgency".
Asked if it had brought in a private investigator, the health board said yesterday the documentation was a matter for the inquiry and the Garda and it would not make any comment.
Other documents inadvertently sent to Ms Martin included letters sent by the inquiry to Dr Neary in April and June this year asking him to give evidence and pointing out that if he didn't co-operate, the Minister for Health would have to be notified.
Dr Neary told the Irish Medical News that where details of the release of the documents were reported, he had been advised by his legal advisers not to comment on what happened.
Ms Martin said yesterday the documents she had received were "extremely dangerous". She added that their release posed questions over the whole inquiry and whether or not people could have confidence in it.
"I sent the inquiry judge a fax last Wednesday and told her I was perplexed about getting these documents.
"I wouldn't have told them they did this only that my house was raided by the gardaí and if it was raided again and they found these, they would think I robbed them from somewhere," she said.