Angela Kerins: I felt forced to end my life
She felt “really forced” into a decision to end her life by March 14, 2014, two weeks after she appeared before a meeting of the PAC on February 27, she said in a sworn statement read out in the High Court.
At that point, she was struggling to see a way through for either Rehab or herself and became “irrationally convinced” the solution “was for me to sacrifice myself”.
“I had a bizarre belief that if I was off the planet, the Rehab Group and everyone else close to me would be saved, my death would resolve the controversy which the Rehab Group found itself in, and would also protect my family from further fall-out from the PAC.”
On March 14, 2014, she “sadly wrote notes to my family explaining the need to do this” before consuming a “large quantity” of pills and some alcohol.
But, as a colleague had become concerned about an earlier phone call with her, the colleague got assistance to break into her home, found her, and she was taken unconscious to hospital where she was discharged the following day.
“I was very angry with myself that I had not succeeded.”
As a result of her experiences before PAC and attendant media coverage, her whole world had “turned upside down” and she resigned as Rehab chief executive in August 2014.
The PAC “set out to destroy me” and that was not in the public interest, said Ms Kerins.
What she experienced was a “McCarthyite witchhunt”.
Ms Kerins lost her job, her career, was “deeply humiliated” and still feels a “deep sense of hurt”. She had joined the Rehab Group in 1992, was appointed chief executive in 2006, and said her work “meant everything” to her.
The affidavit was read by John Rogers, counsel for Ms Kerins, in the High Court yesterday. He was opening a hearing concerning the jurisdiction of PAC to question Ms Kerins.
That issue is central to her case over her treatment by the PAC, and also includes a claim for aggravated damages. Ms Kerins alleges PAC unlawfully subjected her to a “vicious onslaught” and had no power to question her about issues including payments by Rehab Group to herself.
The hearing is before a three-judge court comprising the president of the High Court, Judge Peter Kelly, and Judges Seamus Noonan and Isobel Kennedy.
Transcripts of PAC hearings concerning Ms Kerins, from February and April 2014, were read to the court during yesterday’s hearing. When the court queried if they would see video recordings of the hearings, Mr Rogers said those lasted seven hours but he would consider the issue overnight.
Earlier, Mr Rogers said a Sunday Independent article by Independent TD Shane Ross, which claimed Ms Kerins had refused to reveal her “vast pay cheque” during an RTÉ interview, set the “tone” in early 2014 for a “growing orchestration” of material “negative about her personality and character”.
Mr Ross was a member of the PAC that later subjected Ms Kerins to impermissible questions about matters not its business and outside its jurisdiction, said Mr Rogers.
After the PAC meeting of February 27, 2014, Ms Kerins was overwhelmed by its disposition towards her and the effects of the “media storm”.
On March 2, she collapsed and attended her GP in Waterford who admitted her to Whitfield clinic under the care of a gastroenterologist who referred Ms Kerins to a psychiatrist.
She was discharged after some days to the Beacon Clinic, Sandyford, and treated until March 11, when she was discharged.
“Regrettably, on March 14, she self-harmed and became unconscious in her own home and had to be rescued for her life,” said Mr Rogers
The PAC, he argued, has in recent years “orchestrated a different mode of operation” characterised by a willingness to depart from a rule it should not, and is not permitted to, delve into personal and private affairs of companies, individuals, enterprises, or charities.
A letter from PAC dated February 18, 2014 gave more details of the nature of the inquiry scheduled for February 27, he said. Before that letter, Ms Kerins had met privately with PAC chairman John McGuinness and understood that certain parameters would apply at the PAC hearing. However, they did not.
During the “hostile” February 27 meeting, Ms Kerins was re-examined and cross-examined about her salary, pension, and bonuses, and other “wholly private and irrelevant” matters including her husband’s company and matters concerning former Rehab chief executive Frank Flannery, said counsel.
The basis for the PAC sitting was to consider payments by the HSE and Department of Justice to Rehab and there was no entitlement to question a private body about payments by it to its executives or anyone else, said Mr Rogers.
The tone of the questioning was that Ms Kerin was being “paid too much”.
The hearing continues today.
