Lawyers for Ms Y query delay in HSE legal review

Lawyers for a woman who was at the centre of a high-profile abortion controversy last year have requested a copy of the Health Service Executive (HSE)’s draft legal review into the case.

Solicitor Caoimhe Haughey of CM Haughey Solicitors, representing the woman known as “Ms Y”, has written to Health Minister Leo Varadkar to question the delay in producing the report and to request a draft copy.

The review was originally expected to be completed in October 2015 but it has been delayed.

Ms Y is a refugee who arrived in Ireland as an asylum seeker in early 2014 and unsuccessfully sought an abortion after discovering that she had become pregnant as a result of rape in her home country.

Although she was deemed suicidal, she faced delays in accessing an abortion and her baby was eventually delivered by C-section at around 26 weeks.

A review into the legal strategy taken by the HSE was commissioned by HSE director-general Tony O’Brien in September 2014 and is being conducted by Eileen Barrington SC.

It is examining the reasonableness of the legal approach taken in the case and to identify lessons for the HSE.

It is separate from a draft report into the care for Ms Y which her lawyers attempted to quash in the High Court.