# How does the Coroner Service work in Ireland? What are the Coroners' qualifications?



## ajapale (22 Sep 2011)

How does the Coroners Court work? What are the qualifications of a Coroner?


aj

this question has been split from a discussion in LOS and some of the factual comments copied here.


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## Vanilla (23 Sep 2011)

It was a coroners court, not a law court.

Coroners court are strange places with a mix of the absurd and the formal. Many of the current coroners have simply 'inherited' the title and have no forensic or specialised knowledge.

I remember ones where the Gardai had to go out on the streets before hand to round up enough members of the jury to make up the quorum. 

Because there was no evidence of a crime, effectively what difference does it make what is put on the death cert?


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## Brendan Burgess (23 Sep 2011)

Vanilla said:


> It was a coroners court, not a law court.
> 
> Coroners court are strange places with a mix of the absurd and the formal. Many of the current coroners have simply 'inherited' the title and have no forensic or specialised knowledge.



Vanilla

Thanks for explaining that. I was wondering how a court which should be evidence-based could arrive at such a conclusion.

So who gets the jobs as coroners?  Solicitors? Doctors? Anyone?


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## Remix (23 Sep 2011)

Brendan Burgess said:


> Vanill
> 
> So who gets the jobs as coroners? Solicitors? Doctors? Anyone?


 

According to 

[broken link removed]

The "core professions .. are very much those of medicine and law".


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## ajapale (23 Sep 2011)

The following well written extract comes from that document:



> There are perhaps few public services as poorly understood or indeed as poorly appreciated as the coroner service. Its association with what are often tragic circumstances does not encourage the general public to look behind the process of death investigation of which the public inquest is an important but not the sole aspect of coroner work.
> 
> The role of the coroner has evolved over hundreds of years and its present shape and organisation is very similar to that which existed
> before the turn of the last century. Apart from the Coroners Act 1962 which updated some legislative aspects of coroner work, there has
> ...





> The current position is that a coroner must, at time of appointment, be either a practising solicitor or barrister, or a registered
> medical practitioner. The reasons for this go back to early in the last century when the office of coroner was being upgraded, having fallen
> somewhat in status. The drive to “professionalising” the office was reflected in the introduction of these kinds of qualifications. The
> argument might be made today that if the carrying out of coroner functions requires a particular set of detailed skills and professional
> knowledge, how can coroners be either a doctor or a lawyer?


So it seems that a coroner has to be a doctor or a laywer and can not be a forensic scientist.


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## Vanilla (23 Sep 2011)

AFAIK the majority are GPs, with the rest solicitors. A coroner can have a deputy and I believe many deputies end up as 'acting' coroner, thus effectively inheriting the position. A reform has been proposed for some some time but not yet put in place. 

I suppose an argument could be made that the coroner is really just an administrative figurehead and hears the evidence of witnesses plus the state pathologist etc and therefore doesnt need specialist knowledge in themselves but they do tend to direct the jury towards a verdict. I know from personal knowledge that many of the jury members are the same old people, available to go to the coroners court, retired people etc and are used to the routine.


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## onq (24 Sep 2011)

Is it not the case that they are also experienced in the hearing of such tragic cases and like many a District Court Judge, can cut through the sometimes emotive testimony to get at the facts behind it?

There seems to be a movement supportive of acedemia at the moment that gives the impression that qualifications eclipse judgement.

This is tengental to the thread about spontaneous human combustion, isn't it?


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## ajapale (24 Sep 2011)

ajapale said:


> This question has been split from a discussion in LOS and some of the factual comments copied here.



Yes, this thread is about the workings of the coroners service and the qualifications of coroners.

Coroners Service from CitizensAdvice.ie



> A Coroner in Ireland is an independent official with legal responsibility for the investigation of sudden and unexplained deaths.
> 
> The role of the Coroner is to enquire into the circumstances of sudden, unexplained, violent and unnatural deaths. This may require a post-mortem examination, sometimes followed by an inquest. The post-mortem is carried out by a pathologist, who acts as the Coroner's agent for this purpose. The Coroner's inquiry initially is concerned with establishing whether or not death was due to natural causes.
> 
> ...


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## onq (24 Sep 2011)

I'd prefer to see a thread addressing the evidence as opposed to going down a road that smacks of being an ad hominem attack by other methods -

"The coronor isn't competent".

For example, in the OP -

"Was there no pathologists report? What did it say?"

That having been said I'm happy to support this thread about the coroner's job - a position I know little enough about


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## ajapale (24 Sep 2011)

Another story today demonstrates another aspect of the work of the  coroner service. (that of public safety).

*Coroner calls for ban on 'unsafe' blinds | Irish Examiner

*


> Coroner Dr Farrell, who recorded a verdict of accidental death, told  Dublin Coroner’s Court that the configuration of the looped string was  "the danger".


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## onq (24 Sep 2011)

This is a very important piece of information Ajay - thanks.
Its cold comfort to find out EU regulations prohibited these blinds since 2009.

Even that doesn't address the issue of cord-operated blinds that are already installed from before that date.
I was in a house yesterday that still had single glazed metal windows and cord operated venetian-style blinds from the 1960's.

Given that the coroner's office deals with fatalities - and whether you agree with his findings or not - I am forming the opinion that the results of inquests be fast-tracked to some sort of fact-crunching committee which advises the Minster for Justice and/or the Oireachtas on bringing forward new laws for our protection.

At the moment, we have a documented investigation and feedback system, but nowhere to transmit this information for  in a mandatory way to close the feedback loop and result in effective action.


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## ajapale (24 Sep 2011)

Information Leaflet - Guide to the work of the Coroner (PDF - 2.53MB)

I think this was developed by the Coroners Society.


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