HEALTH Minister Stephen Donnelly has agreed to meet with the parents of Aoife Johnston, the tragic Shannon teen whose death in 2022 at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) was the subject of a report which has resulted in six people becoming the subject of disciplinary proceedings.
Addressing the Oireachtas Health Committee today (Thursday October 10) Minister Donnelly said that the Johnston’s solicitor, Damien Tansey, made contact on Wednesday to request a meeting with him and HSE boss Bernard Gloster.
He told the committee that he is happy to meet with James and Carol Johnston, who broke their silence on their 16-year-old daughter’s tragic death for the first time last week on RTÉ’s Prime Time.
“My thoughts remain very much with the Johnston family … the fraught circumstances in which they witnessed their daughter’s deterioration (in UHL) … If it were my child I would want answers,” the Health Minister told the committee today.
Asked if he would be giving the family the statutory inquiry they have asked for, and whether there would be a government apology, Minister Donnelly said that the “Johnston family will be at the heart of anything we do”.
He reiterated his earlier comments that public inquiries can take years “and in the end may not bring the results that people hoped for”.
The Minister said he was aware of the family’s dissatisfaction with the contradictory statements given to former Chief Justice Frank Clarke in his report into the circumstances of Aoife’s death from meningitis after presenting at the UHL emergency department.
“I firstly want to listen to James and Carol (at the forthcoming meeting) and hear what they want,” the Minister told the committee.
Speaking to the question of a government apology, he said that “I have apologised, Bernard Gloster has apologised – if they want a national apology, they will have it.”
He added that work is in train to ensure that “all of the recommendations” in the Clarke report are implemented.
