As a new year commences, I wish to provide an update on the work of the Inquiry and its plans for 2023.
The inquiry commenced its public hearings on 8th November 2022 when I made some opening remarks followed by Counsel to the Inquiry, Martin Wolfe KC’s detailed opening statement. I am grateful to the entire legal team and secretariat of the Inquiry for the work that went into ensuring that we were able to start our public hearings on that date.
Since then, we have live-streamed our hearings via the Inquiry website to give access to the hearings for those who are interested in our work. This has provided the opportunity for a large number of people to view the evidence as it is delivered, without the need to attend at the hearings in person. I am grateful to our AV partners for effectively managing the live feed.
In November and December, we heard from a number of witnesses whose evidence related to the issues that led to the setting-up of the Inquiry. The transcripts of that evidence can we found on the Inquiry’s website. We found it extremely helpful to hear from those who spoke to the Inquiry. Giving evidence can be a stressful experience for all witnesses and the panel and legal team are cognisant of this. While we do what we can to alleviate this, it is, important that we hear from those who have relevant and important evidence.
As we have made public during the hearings, the Inquiry has received a vast amount of documentation, now in excess of 500,000 pages. The work involved in assessing this documentation is very significant and it will continue throughout 2023.
During the coming year the Inquiry will continue to gather documentary evidence by way of issuing S21 Notices to individuals. The Inquiry legal team will carry on assessing the responses to all the S21 Notices that have been received. This will help to determine from whom we must receive oral evidence. It is our intention only to call those whom we consider we must hear from. We try to give as much notice of the hearing schedule as possible to witnesses. Where we can, we will continue to accommodate witnesses and their professional commitments.
The Inquiry will sit again on 24th January in private session to hear from some more families of patients. This will be the last private hearing session before Easter, but as we have been contacted by further families and patients since the public opening, I will ensure that those who wish to speak with us have further opportunities to do so during 2023.
On 25th January we will continue hearing evidence from Dr Dermot Hughes and Mr Hugh Gilbert, who spoke to us in late November.
From 26th January the Inquiry will hear evidence relevant to the task set for it in our Terms of Reference at paragraph (e):
“To review the implementation of the Department of Health’s “Maintaining High Professional Standards Policy” by the Trust in relation to the investigation related to Mr O’Brien. The Inquiry is asked to determine whether the application of this Policy by the Trust was effective and to make recommendations, if required, to strengthen the Policy.”
This evidence will take us right up until Easter. The timetable for the witnesses will be published a week in advance on the Inquiry website. We will sit again in two-week blocs of 3 days, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, followed by two weeks non-sitting when preparation for the next witnesses can be made. As always, we will require to be flexible and take account of unforeseen circumstances such as illnesses, but we currently plan to sit on the following dates:
January 24 (Private Session), 25, 26 and 31
February 1, 2, 21, 22, 23 and 28
March 1, 2, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29 and 30
I hope that this information is helpful. I will provide further information about the evidence that we will hear after Easter when this has been confirmed.