{"id":671101,"date":"2026-09-03T21:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T21:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/671101\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T21:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T21:44:09","slug":"no-record-of-garda-activity-after-initial-response-to-disappearance-of-man-who-died-by-suicide-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/671101\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018No record\u2019 of Garda activity after initial response to disappearance of man who died by suicide \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was \u201cno record\u201d of any Garda<\/a> activity in the 17 hours after two garda\u00ed initially responded to the disappearance of a suicidal man from an emergency department in Dublin<\/a>, an investigator for the State\u2019s policing watchdog has said.<\/p>\n

A jury returned an inquest verdict of death by suicide on the third and final day of Se\u00e1n O\u2019Neill\u2019s inquest on Thursday.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill\u2019s body was found almost a decade ago in an area of overgrowth on the grounds of Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown<\/a> more than 24 hours after he left the emergency department in March 2017.<\/p>\n

An initial inquest in 2020 was abandoned after it emerged that Garda civilian staff were among the jurors selected by a member of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na, which selects most inquest juries.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old had been arrested in the early hours of March 8th on public order grounds outside his home in Mornington, Co Meath<\/a>, after both he and his partner made calls to garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n

He subsequently made two suicide attempts in a Garda cell before he was released from custody and brought to the hospital by ambulance.<\/p>\n

The father of four left about 90 minutes after arriving and medical staff told the inquest there was no legal or medical basis to retain him involuntarily, despite concerns for his wellbeing.<\/p>\n

Aspects of the handling of his disappearance and death were investigated by the Garda watchdog, Fiosr\u00fa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The inquest previously heard two garda\u00ed were initially dispatched 12 minutes after O\u2019Neill left at 7.05am on March 8th, after hospital staff called for assistance.<\/p>\n

Michael McGloin and Andrew Reynolds arrived at about 8am, although both told the inquest on Wednesday they could not recall what action they took that day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Asked by coroner Dr Myra Cullinane on Thursday what occurred between 8am on March 8th and shortly after 1am on March 9th, D\u00f3nal O\u2019Connor, a senior investigating officer at Fiosr\u00fa, said there was \u201cno Garda activity between those hours\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no record,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Asked by David O\u2019Dwyer, a barrister appearing for An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na, if he checked records at Blanchardstown Garda station or spoke to Garda members involved, he replied that he had and that Fiosr\u00fa, formerly Gsoc, conducted a \u201ccomprehensive investigation\u201d.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill\u2019s family had been searching for him since he left the hospital, and two garda\u00ed, Naoise Doherty and Barry Tormey, ultimately attended his mother\u2019s house for information shortly after 1am on March 9th.<\/p>\n

As far as he was aware, Tormey said they were responding to an \u201cinitial report\u201d at the time, though he now knew garda\u00ed had responded the day prior.<\/p>\n

Tormey said O\u2019Neill would \u201cautomatically\u201d be categorised as a high-risk missing person, given his history of self-harm.<\/p>\n

After an unsuccessful search of the hospital, a missing person incident was logged on the Garda Pulse system, which Tormey said was a \u201cpriority\u201d in order to circulate the case to other Garda stations.<\/p>\n

The inquest previously heard no report was logged on the system by the first garda\u00ed to respond.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill\u2019s body was ultimately discovered shortly after midday on March 9th, about a \u201cfive-minute walk\u201d from the emergency department and a short distance from where he was last seen on CCTV.<\/p>\n

The jury endorsed the fact that revised Garda guidelines for the handling of missing persons cases came into effect this year.<\/p>\n

It also noted there appeared to be a public \u201cmisconception\u201d that someone must be missing for 24 hours before official action could be taken.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill\u2019s mother, Rosaleen Fitzgerald, previously told the inquest she had been informed by a Garda that 24 hours must pass before they can act, though Insp Michael Galligan, who provided details on revised guidelines, told the coroner that has \u201cnever been the case\u201d.<\/p>\n

Describing O\u2019Neill as \u201cfunny, loving and caring\u201d, his 18-year-old sonJamie said his death had a \u201cprofound\u201d impact on his family.<\/p>\n

He said his father\u2019s life was \u201cvery difficult\u201d in the months leading up to his death, adding that he felt \u201cstrongly that what happened to Se\u00e1n must never happen again\u201d.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill\u2019s sister, Catherine, said that \u201cfinally\u201d after nearly a decade, they could \u201clay our brother to rest and allow him to be at peace\u201d.<\/p>\n

Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.ie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was \u201cno record\u201d of any Garda activity in the 17 hours after two garda\u00ed initially responded to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[956,22431,9,10,52,18,13,14,5650,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,1873,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-671101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-blanchardstown","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-dublin","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-fiosru","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-meath","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117209298563534374","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}