Thoroughness of inquiry on death investigated

THE GARDA Ombudsman is investigating whether an original investigation into Kate Fitzgerald’s death was sufficiently thorough.

Ms Fitzgerald’s parents contacted the ombudsman last January with a number of complaints over the manner in which the investigation was conducted.

Yesterday, a spokesman for the ombudsman confirmed that an investigation was under way, but declined to comment further.

Under legislation, the ombudsman is required to investigate any matter where it appears a garda may have committed an offence or behaved in a way that would justify disciplinary proceedings.

Kate Fitzgerald’s father, Tom, yesterday said the family had complained to the ombudsman with concerns over the way the original investigation was conducted.

He said they followed this up with further complaints after receiving postmortem results which, he said, raised further questions over the Garda investigation.

Mr Fitzgerald declined to comment on these details on the basis the investigation was ongoing.

“We would like to know exactly what happened to Kate, and we hope that’s what this investigation will establish,” he said.

Ms Fitzgerald, who worked for the Communications Clinic public relations firm, was found dead at her home in Dublin in August last year.

She was believed to have taken her own life.

Ms Fitzgerald’s death became the source of media attention after she was identified as the author of an anonymous article in The Irish Times last September about her efforts to deal with depression and workplace attitudes to mental health.

Her parents later contacted the newspaper after recognising their daughter’s words, and an article on her life was published last November.

The newspaper subsequently edited the initial article online and published a clarification after further details of her final months emerged.

The move was criticised by Ms Fitzgerald’s parents, who said an apology published in the newspaper – which stated the article contained “significant assertions which were not factual” – was equivalent to calling their daughter a liar.

Last week, following complaints from her parents, the Press Council upheld one of several complaints against the newspaper on the basis that the apology “failed to take sufficiently into account the feelings of Tom and Sally Fitzgerald, who were grieving over the death by suicide of their daughter Kate”.

However, the ombudsman found there was no evidence the newspaper acted other than in good faith in publishing the apology, because of legal issues that arose following the identification of the author of the original article.