Under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms everybody in Ireland has a right to life. It reads:

Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be
deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a
court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided
by law.

Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of
this article when it results from the use of force which is no more than
absolutely necessary:”

This is the context in which to see any occasion when a person dies in police custody or as a result of State action.

Furthermore, however, it is incumbent on the State to properly investigate deaths. To fail to do so is itself a breach of the Convention.

The job of the police who carry out these investigations is not easy. Every police officer is trained in the giving of evidence. If they do not wish to disclose the true course of events it is easy for them to tailor their account to suit the needs of the situation.

It is a delusion promoted by crime writers to think that a witness can be “broken” in the witness box. Very rarely, a witness can be demolished, but that is not the same thing.

The obligation on the State (and the investigating detective) was summarised HERE by the House of Lords (in a case of suicide in police custody):

…it [the investigation] had to be initiated by the state itself, to be prompt and carried out with reasonable expedition, it had to be effective and conducted by a person who was independent of those implicated in the events under investigation.”

Step forward WALLANDER!

The Department of Health and Children is in Hawkins St. in Dublin 2. Hawkins St. is a short street.

At the end of the street there is a memorial in Victorian style to Constable Patrick Sheehan who died, in 1905, trying to rescue a workman from a gas filled sewer.

The gas must be still there, affecting the Minister for Health.

The Health Service Executive is, currently, dysfunctional and a failure. It has failed on a number of fronts but consistently it has failed on the issue of hospital hygiene. The extreme cases of Ennis General Hospital and now St. Columcille’s Hospital where multiple deaths through nosocomial infections have taken place are representative of the general situation.

The Minister’s response to the situation is bizarre, and reported HERE:

She pointed out that the health service has a national plan to tackle health acquired infections which would see them reduced by 20% in the coming years, and MRSA in particular by 30%.

This would involve a reduction in the use of antibiotics, she said, of 20%.

The reference to antibiotics is a reference to her theory that health care infections are caused by the evolution of microbes. She attributes the evolution to excessive use of antibiotics.

She is not deterred in her assertions by any contrary evidence. Like the fact that Irish hospitals have a low standard of hygiene and that poor hospital hygiene is the cause of the infections. Or the fact that Clostridium difficile has not perceptibly evolved. Clostridium difficile is the infection that caused the deaths in Ennis and St. Columcille’s.

One can only feel, if the gas is not the explanation for her views, that she is motivated by the fact that no person or institution is answerable for excessive use of antibiotics and no legal liability would attach to the HSE if her view prevails.

Words are important. They matter.

I have tried to defend the correct use of the word “refute�? before (several times).
It is too good a word to allow its destruction unopposed.

I have also criticised the Minister for Health and the Health Service Executive over the failure to address the problem that is Clostridium difficile infections and lack of hygiene in Irish hospitals, HERE and HERE and HERE.

That abuse of language, misrepresentation and Clostridium difficile deaths should all appear in one report, indeed in one single sentence, is vindication.

Here is the sentence:

…refuted the suggestion that a marginal reduction in the amount spent had any connection with the issue of C difficile�?,

from THIS REPORT.