The barrister who was due to represent a home-birth midwife in a High Court case said it would have been "suicidal" to press ahead with the case when there was no chance of winning.
Michael Forde SC was due to represent Ann Ó Ceallaigh (also known as Kelly) who had sought a judicial review hearing of a decision by An Bord Altranais's fitness to practise committee.
The nursing board's censure of Ms Ó Ceallaigh arose following a complaint alleging undue delay in taking a woman with a difficult labour to hospital.
Ms Ó Ceallaigh has taken a case to the solicitors disciplinary tribunal, claiming that her former solicitor Colm MacGeehin settled the case against her wishes. He has strongly denied this.
Mr Forde told the tribunal that Ms Ó Ceallaigh at first had a good case because she had not been given reasons for her censure. However, she was later given reasons and this meant the case was "virtually dead in the water".
Mr Forde said she had three wins in the Supreme Court, injunctions against her were lifted and she was publicly seen as the "midwife who had been wronged".
However there were four or five reasons why she would lose this case and she would be putting all her victories in jeopardy to fight "a stupid set of proceedings". He had explained this to her "but she didn't understand or didn't want to understand".
Mr Forde said his junior counsel, Barbara Hewson, eased Ms Ó Ceallaigh's concerns and she accepted the advice to settle the case and try to secure her costs. It was settled on the following morning, December 4th, 2002.
The tribunal has already heard from Ms Ó Ceallaigh that she was "devastated" when she arrived at court to find that the case had been struck out. She said she had faxed instructions to Mr MacGeehin outlining her concerns about the fact that the censure was not going to be lifted.
Mr MacGeehin agreed that she had raised concerns about the issue of censure on several occasions but he understood that he had her consent when he sought permission to file an affidavit, updating the court on developments, before the hearing.
