Five Years on the Steps of the Court

Picture a fob watch pinned to a midwife's uniform.

It counts contractions. It counts heartbeats. It marks the minute a baby arrives.

Now picture that same midwife years later, still counting. She isn't counting minutes now but years, waiting for a case to end.

That picture is mine. The numbers behind it are not.

At the Irish Hospital Consultants Association meeting in Killarney on Saturday, its president, Prof Gabrielle Colleran, said: "Every time we have a medical negligence case in maternity services, you lose a midwife who was involved in it, who then leaves practice."

Read that again: every time.

Barrister Eavanna Fitzgerald said nobody wants cases "looming over them for five years." "They're losing sleep for five years," she said. "Patients who have already had [an] adverse event are having repeated trauma." Between 95 and 97 per cent of cases, she said, are settled before trial, sometimes on the steps of the court.

So nearly every family goes through years of fighting for an outcome that almost always ends in a settlement anyway.

The President of the High Court, Judge David Barniville, said some of the recommendations go back "in some cases, 20 years." Rules that would bring families and doctors together early are already law, but they still need a minister's signature. The group meant to bring in the reforms hasn't met in months. "Courts aren't experts; legislators are supposed to be the experts," he said. "We are at the limit in terms of what we can do."

Then there is the baby.

Prof Rhona Mahony, former master of the National Maternity Hospital, said the biggest costs come from brain injury at birth, largely cerebral palsy. Awards have reached €35 million. Judge Barniville said most of that is the cost of care, and only €500,000 is compensation.

So most of that money is not a prize. It is a lifetime of care for a child.

"There's a huge gap between what the courts award and what is available to the patients who cannot take the case," Prof Mahony said. "There's huge inequality." She wants early care for every child with a brain injury, whether or not anyone was negligent.

That idea values every life. A child's care shouldn't depend on winning in court.

On Friday, a couple settled their High Court actions against the National Maternity Hospital over the death of their daughter, Linnea. She was born on 6 October 2021 at 27 weeks and five days. She weighed 755 grams and lived for 15 days. The hospital denied the claims, and the settlements were made without an admission of liability. Their counsel said the couple lost so much faith in the health system that they moved to Barcelona for the birth of their second child.

From October 2021 to October 2026 is five years.

I'm not here to judge that case. I'm here to notice the clock.

What would it take for a grieving family, a shaken midwife and a hospital to sit at one table in the first year, instead of on the steps of the court in the fifth?

The fixes are already written. A regulation can be signed. A group can meet.

Because somewhere tonight a midwife is holding a watch, counting a heartbeat that isn't hers. And a child who can't speak yet is depending on her to stay.

Sources: The Irish Times, 19 October 2026, and The Irish Times, 16 October 2026.