It would be a waste of time and money if the Health Service Executive (HSE) was to engage somebody new to review deaths at the Leas Cross nursing home in north Dublin, Minister for Health Mary Harney said yesterday.
A review of 95 deaths at the home between 2002 and 2005 was completed by consultant geriatrician Prof Des O'Neill earlier this year but the HSE, which has faced renewed calls in recent days to publish his report, said it could not be published in its current form.
Prof O'Neill has insisted his report is finished but the HSE has said until it incorporates the responses of people criticised in it, it could not, on legal advice, be put into the public domain.
It said if Prof O'Neill did not revisit the report, it might have to engage somebody new to review the deaths all over again.
Prof O'Neill, however, who has said his findings in relation to Leas Cross were "grave" and "disturbing" and required urgent attention, claimed at the weekend that what was now being suggested he embark on was "a judicial form of tribunal" which was outside his terms of reference and which required judicial training.
Asked about the impasse yesterday, Ms Harney said she did not believe the difficulties which had arisen were insurmountable.
"I think quite honestly to start all over again would be a waste of time and money.
"We have a report. It is a question of finding the circumstances and I don't think it's insurmountable quite honestly," Ms Harney said.
However, she said the strong legal advice given to the HSE could not be ignored.
People criticised in the report had to have an opportunity to respond if "natural justice" were to prevail.
"I really do believe the circumstances can be created to facilitate its publication," she said.
The HSE is to meet Prof O'Neill later this week to see if a way forward can be agreed which would see the report published quickly.
"I hope there can be a coming- together between the author of the report, Prof O'Neill, whom I know and have great respect for - he's one of our leading geriatricians in the country - and the HSE, so that the circumstances can be created to facilitate the publication of this report," Ms Harney said.
"It would not be acceptable to me as Minister for Health for this report to go unpublished . . . we must learn in Ireland that any time you don't come out openly and transparently on issues you make problems worse; you don't solve them," she added.
Meanwhile, the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) joined yesterday in calling for the report's immediate publication.
Its president, Dr Christine O'Malley, called on Ms Harney "as the person ultimately responsible for the delivery of safe healthcare, to direct" that it be published without delay.
"Issues which impact directly on standards of care for the elderly must be made public and acted upon as a matter of urgency," Ms O'Malley said.
Leas Cross, a private nursing home in Swords, north Dublin, closed in August 2005 after the HSE withdrew public patients from it following a Prime Time Investigates TV programme on the treatment of a number of patients there.