A five-year legal battle between a Co Dublin domiciliary midwife and An Bord Altranais (the nursing board) ended at the High Court yesterday.The proceedings have cost the board an estimated €2 million, while Ms Ann Ó Ceallaigh has emerged victorious and with no restrictions on her practice.
Ms Ó Ceallaigh, of Temple Crescent, Blackrock, has consistently claimed it was the practice of domiciliary midwifery which was really on trial in the inquiry into her conduct. The inquiry, she has alleged, was instigated by the former master of the National Maternity Hospital, Dr Peter Boylan, "as a means of damaging domiciliary midwives".
The last stage in the saga, which dates back to 1997 and has involved numerous High Court applications and three Supreme Court hearings, involved a settlement yesterday of judicial review proceedings taken by Ms Ó Ceallaigh against the board over the failure to give reasons for recommendations by the board's Fitness To Practice (FTP) Committee - despite its finding that she was not guilty of misconduct - that she be censured and her practise supervised for two years.
After Ms Ó Ceallaigh initiated the action, she claims reasons were given which, she claims, were not sustainable. She disputed these at a hearing before the board. It is understood the board has decided not to proceed with the recommendation of restrictions.
In light of those developments, Ms Ó Ceallaigh's judicial review proceedings were settled and Mr Justice Ó Caoimh struck them out yesterday with an order for costs in favour of Ms Ó Ceallaigh against the board.
Afterwards Ms Ó Ceallaigh said: "This is a very good day for midwifery. It's been a very long, hard road, but now I can practise midwifery as it's meant to be practised. This never needed to end up in the courts but it did."
She criticised the "very draconian" Nurses Act, particularly the absence of the word "she" in the legislation, and the provisions that hearings of the FTP committee are held in private.
"As a professional working with the public, I am accountable to the public and my profession, and I have very grave reservations about these in camera hearings."
Ms Ó Ceallaigh also thanked her legal team and the mothers, fathers and others who supported her over the past five years.
The legal saga began in 1997 when the High Court, on the board's application, granted an injunction restraining her from practising. That order was varied on more than 40 occasions on the applications of pregnant women, before being finally lifted in 1999.
In May 2000, the Supreme Court granted Ms Ó Ceallaigh's appeal against the High Court's refusal to discontinue an inquiry by the FTP committee into three complaints against her. The court found the board had not followed fair procedures in initiating the inquiries and had not informed Ms Ó Ceallaigh of the complaints and given her an opportunity to respond. It also dismissed the board's appeal against the High Court's lifting of the injunction restraining Ms Ó Ceallaigh from practising.
An inquiry by the FTP committee into the fourth and only outstanding complaint against Ms Ó Ceallaigh did proceed and was heard over 17 days. Ms Ó Ceallaigh alleged the complaint of professional misconduct against her was made by Dr Boylan and concerned a woman client of hers who had to be admitted to the National Maternity Hospital. Ms Ó Ceallaigh said the woman involved had made no complaint herself.
Ms Ó Ceallaigh said the FTP committee had found her not guilty of professional misconduct but made recommendations she be censured and her practice supervised by a public health nurse. She challenged the alleged failure to give reasons for those recommendations and it was that action which was settled yesterday.
