Questions remain as to how Noreen Mulholland could continue working after an earlier dismissal, writes Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent
It was in July 2003 when news first broke of a nurse having been suspended from Naas General Hospital.
The then South Western Area Health Board, which ran the hospital, confirmed it had passed on to the Garda details of a number of allegations which had been levelled against the nurse by colleagues. An investigation began.
It said the nurse had been working at the hospital for a number of months at that stage but was taken off duty as soon as the hospital learned of the allegations.
In the days that followed, gardaí exhumed the body of John Gethings (77), Baltinglass, Co Wicklow, who had died at Naas hospital on March 2nd, 2003.
He had allegedly been given an injection of Serenase, a sedative, by the nurse who was at the centre of their investigation, even though it had only been prescribed for him in tablet form.
Furthermore the nurse had used a large gauge needle, making the injection more painful.
The identity of the nurse was not revealed as Noreen Mulholland until she appeared before Naas District Court almost a year later, charged with recklessly administering a substance to two patients which she knew to be capable of interfering with their bodily functions.
One of these patients was the late Mr Gethings, the other was Séamus Doherty (80), Rathcoffey, Naas, who has since died.
Mulholland was also charged with assaulting these two patients, causing them harm.
In October this year following a 21-day trial, she was convicted on three of the charges - poisoning Mr Gethings, assaulting him and assaulting Mr Doherty - by a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
It was stressed during her trial that while Mr Gethings died on March 2, 2003 it was not the State's case that Mulholland was responsible for his death.
Yesterday she received a four-year suspended sentence from Judge Frank O'Donnell who told her: "You will never nurse again nor should you."
Mulholland, now aged 35 and living in Portadown, Co Armagh, was born in Britain and her family moved back to Northern Ireland when she was a child.
She had a difficult childhood and suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a neighbour who was convicted for the offence.
As a young woman she went to the US where she trained to be a nurse before returning to Ireland in 2001 to work here.
Having registered with An Bord Altranais, the nursing board, in January 2002 she took up a job with the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin.
However in June that same year, she was told at the Blackrock Clinic that she had poor attention to detail and did not have the level of clinical skills needed to carry out night duty work. She was dismissed by the hospital that November.
Barbara Murray, a clinical nurse manager at the Blackrock Clinic, told her trial that Mulholland was a caring nurse but she had no insight into her own limitations.
After leaving the hospital, Mulholland registered with the Nurse On Call nursing agency which obtained a good reference for her from the Blackrock Clinic. While with the agency she worked at a Dublin nursing home, at Tallaght hospital and at Naas Hospital.
It was during her first night shift at Naas hospital on February 28th/March 1st, 2003, that she is alleged to have injected Mr Gethings "very brutally and very roughly" with the unprescribed drug.
While Mulholland's name will be removed from the nurses register, it is likely questions will now be asked about how she was allowed to move on to work in Naas when she had been dismissed from a previous job due to her level of competency.