The Moriarty tribunal may have the former Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey, medically examined after his lawyers said yesterday that requiring him to continue his testimony could hasten his death from prostate cancer.
The tribunal chairman, Mr Justice Moriarty, said he would take some time to rule on Mr Haughey giving further evidence. Mr Justice Moriarty said he could not regard it as a fait accompli that Mr Haughey's medical consultants could not consider him giving any form of evidence. However, some "alternative, albeit less satisfactory, procedure" might have to be devised for taking Mr Haughey's evidence, he said.
A medical report given to the tribunal states that Mr Haughey is terminally ill with prostate cancer and should not be called again to testify. The stress involved in giving evidence to the tribunal is shortening his life expectancy, the report says.
Mr Haughey was diagnosed with prostate cancer in October 1995, and the progress of the disease has been "particularly marked over the past six months", according to the report.
Counsel for Mr Haughey, Mr Eoin McGonigal SC, read extracts from the medical report at the outset of yesterday's hearing and gave further opinion on Mr Haughey's health from consultant urologist Mr Peter McLean.
Mr McGonigal said the decision to make public the details of Mr Haughey's medical condition had been taken by Mr Haughey and Mr McLean. It was clear an issue was developing between the tribunal and Mr Haughey over whether he should be called to give further evidence, he said.
Mr Justice Moriarty said he was under an obligation to the Oireachtas to proceed with the tribunal hearings and conclude its business as expeditiously as possible.
The chairman said he was bound by common decency, fair principles and natural justice to have "very considerable regard" to the health of Mr Haughey.
"It goes without saying that if a weight of informed professional opinion were to establish, as a preponderant likelihood, that the requiring of further evidence from Mr Haughey was oppressive, unfair and likely to expose him to undue stress or to exacerbate his condition, I would then have to consider whether some form of seeking to conclude his evidence before the tribunal in some different venue or by some alternative, albeit less satisfactory, procedure, could be devised," he said. Previously Mr Haughey has given his evidence to the tribunal in two-hour morning sessions.
He added that he might now seek to have a medical examination of Mr Haughey conducted for the tribunal.
Mr McGonigal said Mr Haughey's medical team would like the tribunal to seek an independent medical view so that they could be assured they had come to a correct conclusion.
Mr Coughlan has earlier read our correspondence between the tribunal's solicitor, Mr John Davis, and the solicitor for Mr Haughey, Ms Deirdre Courtney, concerning Mr Haughey's ability to give evidence.
The chairman of the tribunal acknowledged "the seriousness of Mr Haughey's medical condition and the obvious distress associated with it", Mr Davis said in letter to Ms Courtney on October 11th.
The tribunal will not sit in public for the rests of this week.