The report of the official investigation into the retention of children's organs by hospitals, which the Government refused to publish last year, found that doctors had been arrogant and insensitive but that there was no evidence of malice or ulterior motives.
The report of the inquiry headed by senior counsel Anne Dunne said parents and next of kin had not been informed about the removal, retention, storage and disposal of organs because of a paternalistic attitude adopted by clinicians. It said doctors believed such postmortem practices were the norm internationally.
However, it said that whatever the motivation the practice of seeking to isolate parents and next of kin from their loved ones after death was unacceptable.
The inquiry was established by the Government in 2000 amid revelations that hospitals had retained the organs of deceased patients without consent for postmortem examinations.
The inquiry was closed down by Minister for Health Mary Harney in March last year after it missed a number of deadlines. It had cost, directly, about €13 million. On closure it submitted more than 50 boxes of material to the Government.
However Ms Harney said that on the advice of the Attorney General this could not be published.
The Government instead asked UCC law lecturer Dr Deirdre Madden to draw up a separate report based on the material produced by the inquiry. This was published in January.
In recent days the Parents for Justice group, which represents families affected by the organ retention controversy, received an edited version of the executive summary of the Dunne report under the Freedom of Information Act.
Parents for Justice said last night the recommendations of the Dunne inquiry were stronger in some areas than those in the report drawn up by Dr Madden.
The Dunne inquiry report proposed that legislation should be enacted to deal with the question of ownership of a dead body which would set out the rights and obligations of parents and next of kin. Previously, it said, there were "uncertainties and ambiguities" about the postmortem process and the whole area of consent had been unclear.
It recommended that parents should be able to sue hospitals and individual doctors where breaches of the statutory provisions occurred. It proposed that an independent board comprising medical, lay, religious and ethnic members should be established to draw up guidelines to give effect to the statute. It stated that the board's function should be that of a bloodhound rather than a watchdog.
The Dunne report also called for the appointment of a new statutory inspector of hospital policy.
