The High Court has reserved judgment on a challenge by a retired professor of microbiology, Prof Irene Hillary, to a Government order directing an inquiry, under the aegis of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, into the conduct of vaccine trials on children in institutions run by religious orders.
The three-day hearing concluded yesterday, and Mr Justice Ó Caoimh said he hoped to deliver judgment before June 11th.
The disputed order was made by the Government under the provisions of the Child Abuse Act 2000. Mr Donal O'Donnell SC, for Prof Hillary, has argued the Government had no power under the Act to make the order, but that claim has been disputed by counsel for the State and for the commission.
The trials in question were carried out on children in institutions on dates in 1960, 1971 and 1973.
The court has heard the Government order was prompted by concerns arising from a report of the chief medical officer (CMO) of the Department of Health on the conduct of the trials. Those concerns, Mr Maurice Collins SC, for the State, said, related to whether informed consent was given for the trials, and whether medical officers and management in the institutions involved might have consented to the trials in the belief the children were receiving the standard vaccine, not a non-standard one.
A further concern related to whether the trials had been appropriately authorised for administration under the Therapeutic Substances Act, the applicable statutory regime at the time. The CMO had also referred to an absence of documentation relating to the trials, and the absence of information to show whether the vaccine used was imported under any licence or permit.
In submissions yesterday, Ms Deirdre Murphy SC, for the commission, said the inquiry sanctioned by the Government order was an additional function imposed on the commission by resolutions of both Houses of the Oireachtas, and there were proper grounds for imposing that additional function.
Counsel said there was no evidence before the court to support a claim that Prof Hillary had been treated "shabbily, if not shamefully" by the commission or the State. Nor was there evidence that Prof Hillary was kept "in the dark" about procedures employed by the vaccine trials division of the commission.
For Prof Hillary, Mr O'Donnell said experts had found the trials were conducted within the accepted norms of the time.