THE Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, has consistently denied any collusion in the legal strategies adopted by the State, the Blood Transfusion Service Board and the National Drugs Advisory Board in the Bridget McCole case.
Despite this assertion there appear to be contradictions and inconsistencies in Mr Noonan's account, and that of the Rainbow party leaders, particularly over the past fortnight.
. The report of the first medical assessment, ordered by McCann Fitzgerald, solicitors for the BTSB, and carried out in April 1996 by Prof Donald Weir, was shared by all three defendants.
. After this was reported in The Irish Times last Saturday Mr Noonan said this was "quite normal legal practice". Since the report was accepted by all three defendants it was not necessary to insist that Mrs McCole endure another medical examination, he said.
. Mr Noonan also said this sharing of the assessment report was a matter of public record for more than a year - since Mrs McCole's legal team requested an early hearing at the High Court. However, a few days before, Mr Noonan was unable to answer a question put by The Irish Times as to whether the State had carried out a medical assessment. "I can't answer that. I do not have the information in my head," he said.
. It was then reported in The Irish Times last Tuesday that a second assessment had been done by Dr Padraic Mac Mathuna at the time Mrs McCole was dying last September but Mr Noonan did not explain why this was done.
. In a statement last Tuesday, concerning this second assessment, Mr Noonan said Dr Mac Mathuna was asked by McCann Fitzgerald to medically assess Mrs McCole, at the time that the BTSB admitted liability in the case. This report, he said, was not shared by the three defendants. Technically, the Minister is correct. What he did not explain though, was the reason why this report was not shared, as the previous one had been.
The explanation would appear to be that this second report was received on the day the case was settled. Mrs McCole died a day later, so there was no point in sharing it.
The chief executive officer of the BTSB, Mr Liam Dunbar, said that when commissioned to do the report Dr Mac Mathuna would have been told by the solicitors he was carrying it out for the three defendants.
. In the same statement last Tuesday, Mr Noonan said the State and the NDAB were made aware afterwards of Dr Mac Mathuna's assessment, by a reference in a copy of a letter from McCann Fitzgerald to Ivor Fitzpatrick (Mrs McCole's solicitors). Another copy of this letter was sent to the Chief State Solicitors' office.
The information about this second assessment formed lust part of the information contained in that letter, according to a spokesman for the Minister. This was at a time when Mr Noonan claimed there had been "no correspondence" between the parties.
. Last Monday Mr Noonan said on Morning Ireland he had told the Government on a number of occasions of "element of the manner in which the court case was being pursued by the BTSB".
This would appear to contradict what the Taoiseach said on March 26th. He told the Dail the Minister for Health had kept the Government informed of the situation "as it developed in a general way."
Mr Bruton also said as far as the BTSB and the NDAB were concerned, "they had separate boards, separate legal teams and separate insurance in regard to liability, and pursued their own independent legal decisions and strategy on the basis of their advice and authority".
. In March the former Minister for Health, Mr Howlin, said the Government was collectively responsible for strategy in all these matters. Advice, he said, "comes through the Minister at the time and the Government made the decision as to how all these things happen. The whole context was that there was a tribunal to take away the whole adversarial nature of these but I now see that didn't suit certainly the McCole family and they were right to go the course that they went. I think everybody feels that it was terribly unfortunate that the poor woman died before her case was finalised."
. At the launch of the Labour Party manifesto on May 20th, the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, said the BTSB had decided upon its legal strategy without consulting the Government. That included making a lodgement of £175,000 in the High Court which the Government was informed of a few days later. "But the action (making the lodgement) was taken without consulting us... I am not aware of any coordination between the State and the BTSB."