Organ Retention
Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-22
============================================================

Pauline Tully (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel

I was contacted by Paula, who lives in Cavan. Her son Tadhg was stillborn on Sunday, 5 June 2016 in Cavan General Hospital. She consented to an autopsy, which was carried out on 7 June and buried her little son on 9 June. Tadhg's parents received the post-mortem report on 17 November 2016, which was a period of five months later but this is not the main issue they have. A year after this, in November 2017, which was 17 months after she had buried Tadhg, she received a phone call asking what she wanted to do with her son's brain and left lung. She was absolutely shocked and horrified. She did not know her son's organs had been retained. She had never been informed or had never given permission for this. The autopsy on her son was carried out by Dr. John Gillan. The post-mortem result did not indicate in any way that the organs had issues relating to his death. In fact, it was hospital error that was the cause of her son's death. An inquest was held, so it was March 2021 before she could bury these organs. A full five years and nine months had passed after she had originally buried Tadhg. She had the horrific experience of opening up his grave and, as she said, opening her wounds of grief again, to bury him whole.
In November 2022, "RTÉ Investigates" did a programme on this issue. It turns out that it was not the first time that this Dr. John Gillan - and he has been named in the programme and publicly, and he has admitted himself that he is involved - did this. Indeed, it seems he has been involved in hundreds of cases, or maybe more, similar to this one, where the organs of babies who had died at birth or who were stillborn were retained. He carried out the autopsies and retained the organs. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, concern was raised about this issue. The Government at the time did commission an expert report to investigate the scandal. The results were published in 2009, and the HSE subsequently initiated an investigation.
It found that one hospital, the Rotunda, had a very different practice to a lot of other hospitals, and this was the hospital where the pathologist, Dr. Gillan, operated from. He was let go from that post on foot of these investigations. It is shocking to find that years later he was still being commissioned to carry out autopsies in different hospitals around the country by the same HSE that had commissioned the report and found that he should be let go for these practices. He was still doing this. Apparently, organs were retained without permission or consultation up until 2020.
It has been almost ten years since Tadhg died, and Paula and her partner and their family have never been told why Tadhg's organs were kept, have never received an apology for this and do not feel that Dr. Gillan was held accountable or responsible. As I said, Paula is not the only one to have been in this position. Many other families are in very similar positions. It is very upsetting, and still very upsetting, even after this length of time, that they feel they have been ignored.
I ask if this matter could be looked into again. The evidence is there. We know who is responsible. I know legislation has been passed which tightens up this whole area, the Human Tissue (Transplantation, Post-Mortem, Anatomical Examination and Public Display) Act 2024, so, hopefully, it will not happen again, but I still think we need to look at and deal with the cases where it has happened.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:50+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-22