The group representing patients of the former Drogheda obstetrician Dr Michael Neary last night welcomed the appointment of Judge Maureen Harding Clark to chair an inquiry into the manner in which they were treated by the doctor.
Judge Harding Clark represented the State in several high-profile prosecutions and was recently appointed to the International Criminal Court.
Her selection to chair the Neary inquiry was conveyed to Patient Focus by the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, when he met some of its members early yesterday.
It is understood the inquiry is to be non-statutory.
The terms of reference have yet to be worked out. Officials from the Department of Health are due to meet Patient Focus again next week to discuss them further.
The Patient Focus delegation who met the Minister presented his plans to their members at a mass meeting in Drogheda last night.
Following the meeting, a spokeswoman for the group, Ms Sheila O'Connor, said it welcomed the fact that there was definitely going to be an inquiry and the fact that a chairperson had been appointed.
However, she said members wanted a significant amount of the inquiry to be conducted in public, something Mr Martin does not favour.
"Our members are asking the Minister to explore further some innovative way for some aspect of it to be in public because people have a right to know what happened," she said.
"We do not think this is impossible," she added.
Dr Neary was earlier this year struck off the medical register after the Medical Council found him guilty of professional misconduct over the unnecessary removal of the wombs of 10 of his patients.
Dr Neary practised at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, from 1974 to 1998 and Patient Focus wants the inquiry to find out how he was allowed continue to remove patients' wombs over a long period.
A file on Dr Neary was sent to the Garda by the Medical Council, which itself said it favoured a broad inquiry into what happened to the women. A Garda investigation has begun.
When Mr Martin first met Patient Focus to discuss inquiring into the Neary affair in September, he expressed shock at the findings of the Medical Council's Fitness to Practice report on Dr Neary. "The report was a dreadful indictment of the treatment of the women concerned who have been both physically and emotionally scarred," he said.
'Gruelling' path to success
Judge Maureen Harding Clark, who has been selected to chair the Neary inquiry, is regarded as a leading criminal lawyer.
Earlier this year she was appointed to the first International Criminal Court.
She was also nominated by the Government as a candidate to the war crimes tribunal in the Hague, to which she was elected by the UN in 2001.
Before that she worked mainly as prosecuting counsel for the State, prosecuting many of the biggest criminal cases, including the first male rape trial and the first marital rape trial. She was the lead counsel in the first money-laundering trial.
She also represented the Attorney General at the beginning of the Lindsay tribunal.
There were only about 20 women at the Bar when she was called in 1975.
She then embarked on one of the most gruelling paths to professional success, on the south-eastern circuit, working as State prosecutor for Tipperary until 1991, when she became a senior counsel.