NATIONAL PROSECUTORS' CONFERENCE: The State pathologist, Dr John Harbison, is seeking the support of coroners and prosecutors for his campaign to get the Department of Finance to fund better pay and conditions for his office.
He speculated about the prospect of delaying funerals - as is the norm in Britain and elsewhere - to force politicians to take a realistic view of forensic medicine in the Republic.
He did not expect too much from the politicians, Dr Harbison conceded, in a country where the "instant" funeral was a cultural imperative.
Dr Harbison told the conference of public prosecutors that the Department of Justice was considering the need for a third State consultant forensic pathologist, because of the increased workload. There were problems with the remuneration of such an appointment, however. His salary, as State pathologist and that of the assistant State pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, were only two-thirds of what was being paid to hospital pathologists. "The chances of our attracting any good candidates are remote in the extreme until this financial imbalance is rectified," he said.
The Irish Medical Organisation had taken up the issue and he would appreciate support from the "criminal law" side of the legal profession and in particular, the DPP's office. "If we cannot get good calibre forensic pathology applicants for our office, standards will not be maintained."
The spectre of a strike or go-slow did not bear thinking about, said Dr Harbison, "but some means of seeking redress from an unheeding Department of Finance may have to be looked into". The pressure of delaying funerals, he felt, might force the politicians to act. in a country where the right of an unhampered "decent burial" for loved ones was of crucial importance.
The cultural norm in Ireland of a "swift burial" sometimes militated against the work of the State pathologist's office - in contrast to Britain, for example, where bodies were often stored for long intervals to allow repeated forensic examinations to be carried out.
"The problems here are the national expectation of the public of near instant funerals and the consumption of much alcohol at and prior to funerals."
This had sometimes led to assaults on mortuary staff seeking to retain bodies and postpone funerals at the State pathologist's request.
In one such incident Dublin Corporation's chief mortician was knocked to the ground by a drunken relative.