The ability to deny reality is a vital necessity when living in a corrupt state. Countless thousands of citizens who regularly rob, cheat, humiliate and otherwise abuse their fellow citizens must have a psychological ability to see their actions as normal. They must be able to compartmentalise their crimes so that they do not conflict with their social and family activities.
Irish bank officials, for example, who robbed millions from their customers over the years, taught their children that stealing was wrong and yet went to work every day and stole from their customers without ever accepting that they were committing the same crime.
We have seen over the years that Irish politicians, solicitors, businessmen, civil servants, policemen and many other sections of Irish society have developed this Jekyll and Hyde ability of acting corruptly while pretending to live normal lives.
This pretence, however, can be upset when questions are asked by somebody from outside the jurisdiction, somebody who has lived, trained and worked in a jurisdiction not infected by the disease of corruption. This was the case in the Neary scandal. Dr. Michael Neary destroyed the lives of scores of healthy women by unnecessarily removing their wombs.
His activities were obviously wrong but nobody asked questions until the arrival of a nurse from the UK, a non corrupt jurisdiction. Despite coming under severe pressure to keep quiet this woman persisted and an investigation was carried out by a group of Dr. Neary’s fellow doctors.
It should come as no surprise that these doctors, who, after all, live and operate within a corrupt state, found that Dr. Neary had no case to answer. In fact, one of them commented that Neary’s patients should consider themselves lucky to have the services of such an accomplished doctor.
When the case was reviewed by another doctor outside our corrupt jurisdiction he immediately concluded that there were grounds for grave concern, finally forcing the Irish Government to conduct an independent inquiry. (This report is well written and worth reading)
As a result of the scandal, a number of the victims made an official complaint to the Irish Medical Council against the doctors who carried out the initial review of Neary’s activities.
Like Irish solicitors and bankers, Irish doctors are allowed to investigate themselves in secret. When a few of the victims made the modest request (13th item) for permission to attend the fitness to practice hearing, they were, of course, denied.
The legal protection enjoyed by The Irish Medical Council is so strong that they could not even confirm that the meeting they held to deny the victims their request actually took place.
