Michael Shine worked as a consultant at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda
The Cabinet could approve a scoping inquiry as soon as tomorrow into Michael Shine, who worked as a consultant at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth, and was later found guilty of sexual assaults on nine boys.
It is understood that a memorandum is to be brought to the Cabinet by Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, which includes provisions for the scoping inquiry to run for 16 weeks, with a senior counsel to be appointed before Christmas.
This could ultimately lead to a full statutory inquiry, which is what victims’ groups have been campaigning for.
Shine worked as a senior registrar and later a consultant at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital between 1964 and 1995.
He was found guilty of assaults against nine boys, at two trials in 2017 and 2019, before serving three years in prison.
Mr Harris said Shine was “a vile paedophile, a prolific abuser who has brought pain and misery to many”.
More than 200 people have settled civil claims against the Medical Missionaries of Mary religious order that oversaw the running of the hospital at that time.
The Chief Executive of Dignity 4 Patients, a group which has worked with around 390 people who say they were abused by Shine, has said survivors have so far given a positive response to the possibility of a scoping exercise.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Adrienne Reilly described a meeting with Ms Carroll MacNeill yesterday as positive and said she was confident that the memo will go before cabinet either tomorrow or next week.
She explained the scoping exercise would involve a number of forms of information gathering.
“It would look at a number of things in relation to information gathering here from some victims, and put together the foundations for a partnership and victim-centred arrangement; through those 16 weeks where we build the foundations for some type of statutory inquiry, we hope at the end of that exercise,” she said.
“I’m hopeful that it will then lead to a full statutory inquiry,” Ms Reilly added, “because everyone deserves to have a voice and tell their story.”
“We need also for the victims to have a voice and for them to be believed, and that is the main thing that they want people to know what happened to them, who failed them, and who should have protected them, and that’s essentially what all statutory inquiries do.”
She said the group has said it will discuss details with all of the survivors, but so far it has only managed to contact a portion of the 390 people it works with.
However, nobody has any interest in this running on for years, she added.
Convicted sex offender to be sentenced for ‘acts of gross indecency’ with mentally impaired man
A convicted Dublin sex offender who was jailed for groping two teenage concert-goers on a Luas will be sentenced next year for acts of gross indecency with a mentally impaired male.
John Daly (58) served a partially suspended four year sentence for sexually assaulting two teenage girls on their way to a Rihanna concert by Luas in 2011.
He received a six year sentence from the Court of Criminal Appeal in 2000 for other sexual crimes, including indecent assault, aggravated sexual assault and rape. Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard these dated from the 1980s and 1990s and involved females.
Daly, with addresses at Cabra Park, Phibsboro and Leinster Road, Rathmines, pleaded guilty to five acts of gross indecency with a mentally impaired person on unknown dates between 2016 and 2017.
Garda Niall Freaney said the complainant later revealed that Daly had threatened to kill him on one occasion and to burn him to death on another, if he didn’t comply with the acts.
The court heard these acts included Daly rubbing his penis over the male and performing oral sex on him.
Gda Freaney told Lisa Dempsey BL, prosecuting, that Daly was later arrested for the offences and claimed during the interview that the behaviour had been consensual. The garda agreed with Luigi Rea BL, defending, that Daly’s guilty plea was valuable to the investigation.
Mr Rea submitted to Judge Melanie Greally that his client had an intellectual disability himself, which was not picked up by people coming in contact with him. He said Daly does make efforts to deal with his demons.
Judge Greally imposed an 18-month-sentence for one of the latest charges and remanded Daly in custody until next year, when she will deal with the remaining four counts on the indictment.
She said an aggravating aspect of the case was that Daly had a “significant and concerning record of misconduct of a sexual nature”.
April 2014
Man given four-year sentence for sexual assaults
A convicted child abuser has been given a four-year jail sentence for sexually assaulting two teenage girls on the Luas while en route to a Rihanna concert.
John Daly from Cabra Park, Phibsboro in Dublin had pleaded guilty to two charges of sexually assaulting the girls aged 13 and 16 in October 2011.
Two years of the four-year sentence were suspended.
The 53-year-old had previously pleaded guilty to attempted rape and indecent assault charges relating to two young girls in the 1980s and to aggravated sexual assault and sexual assault on a 62-year-old woman on dates from 1997 to 1998.
Today, Daly was sentenced for assaulting the two Limerick girls who had been driven to Dublin by one of their fathers for the concert.
He put them on the Luas at Heuston Station because of heavy traffic.
The two girls got separated on the busy tram.
John Daly approached the 16-year-old and molested her by putting his hand between her legs over her clothing.
The teenager later told gardaí she felt she had no way out because she was squashed against a bar and did not know how to deal with the situation.
The court heard today that she was shocked and frozen and because of the shock she was unable to do anything.
Daly then placed his hand on the 13-year-old’s backside area for some time after she bumped into him and apologised for standing on his toe.
She said she moved out of his way at her first opportunity to do so.
Both girls gave a good description of Daly to the girl’s father when they met him on the platform when they got off the Luas.
Daly became a suspect after gardaí viewed CCTV footage.
He was arrested three months later as he was about to board a Luas at the 02 following a One Direction concert.
During a garda interview he admitted he had got on the Luas heading for the Rihanna concert in order to touch young girls.
He said he wanted to apologise to the girls for what had happened.
Sentencing Daly, Judge Mary Ellen Ring said in a victim impact statement one of the girls said she felt uncomfortable meeting strangers on public transport and is more afraid generally.
Judge Ring said to be sexually assaulted in a public place when they were unfamiliar with the area can be a damaging event.
She said this was not an opportunistic spur of the moment assault but there was an element of some planning which is a matter of concern for the court.
She sentenced Daly to four years in prison but suspended the last two years.
She said it would be in everyone’s benefit that he receive treatment and ordered that he attend the Safer Lives Programme.
In February 2000, Daly was sentenced to three years in prison with one year suspended for attempted rape and aggravated sexual assault charges.
The DPP successfully appealed the leniency of the sentence and it was increased to a six-year term.
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