Former hospital consultant Dr Michael Shine (72) has claimed that the allegations he indecently assaulted six teenage boys are "tied up with compensation, the malignancy of compensation" and has said that the only people who thought he was a danger to others were the press.
He yesterday completed his direct evidence and was then cross-examined by the prosecution.
Dr Shine, Wellington Road, Dublin, has denied the 11 assaults on six youths between 1974 and 1982.
They are alleged to have taken place at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and at his private consulting rooms on Fair Street, Drogheda, Co Louth, when the complainants were aged between 14 and 17 years.
Yesterday he told a jury at Dundalk Circuit Criminal Court that he finally retired in October 1995.
He had been asked to leave earlier that year following a complaint to the health board by one of the six complainants.
Dr Shine said he was initially asked to leave until "it was sorted out", which he thought would take about three months. However, he said that the nurses in the hospital, as well as the medical board, supported him and the chairman of the board said he could go back to work.
He said he worked just one day over the August bank holiday weekend because there was a constant flow of telephone calls, particularly from the press.
"It is a tragedy of our times that the nurses did not see me as a danger, the consultants did not see me as a danger, the junior doctors did not see me as a danger but the press saw me as a danger," he told the jury.
He also said, in relation to the first complainants, Mr A and Mr B, that their case was considered and he was informed that there would be no further action.
He then told the court there was a rumour that one of them had gone to the then Taoiseach, Mr John Bruton, who had referred it to the Minister for Health and there was a question in the Dáil about it "all under the guise of child sex abuse".
"Somebody told me every TD in the Dáil knew who I was."
Cross-examined by Mr John O'Kelly, prosecuting, Dr Shine said he had lost his job as a result of the complaints and denied that he had abused the trust put in him as a doctor.
"If I had abused that trust, would I have existed in the Lourdes hospital for all those years?" he replied.
He then said the allegations were tied up with compensation and mentioned that an advert including a free-phone number was published in newspapers at the time.
Asked by Mr O'Kelly if the complainants were entitled to compensation, Dr Shine said they were if what they said was true.
He claimed it was the publicity that encouraged people to come forward and make complaints.
Dr Shine also said that if the allegations were true, complaints would have been made earlier. When Mr O'Kelly said that young people would have found it impossible to make a complaint against an eminent surgeon, particularly in those days, Dr Shine replied: "There is nothing more ludicrous."
He defended carrying out a full examination in relation to Mr C, who was sent to see him by his solicitor following an accident during which he broke his wrist. Mr O'Kelly asked was it not unusual to carry out an examination of the genitals in such circumstances. Mr Shine said he had to do a full clinical examination so that his examination "was complete".
He again denied the allegations of assault and of masturbating the complainants. He said he did not have concerns about any of the medical examinations he carried out on them.
The trial is continuing before Judge Michael O'Shea.