The HSE asked parents of children who were wrongly prescribed anti-psychotic drugs to sign retroactive consent forms – half a decade after they were first medicated, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The request was made in late 2025 as the HSE prepared to publish a report by Dr Colette Halpin into dangerous care failures at its North Kerry Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS).

The Halpin report was ordered after whistleblower Dr Maya Sharma exposed horrific failures at South Kerry CAMHS, which were documented in the 2022 Maskey report (by Dr Seán Maskey).

It found that, just as in south Kerry, practices at North Kerry CAMHS – including the inappropriate prescription of medication – had potentially harmed hundreds of young people. The Halpin report was delivered to the HSE in November 2025 and published in February this year.

But letters to parents – seen by the MoS this week – reveal that in the lead-up to the report’s publication, the HSE in North Kerry sought to retrospectively obtain consent for prescriptions issued years earlier.

In some cases, the letters asked parents and guardians to give consent for medications that had been prescribed to their child half a decade before.

The letters include an information leaflet on the medications prescribed and a tick-box check list, apparently pre-completed by the HSE. The list included a statement that an ‘information sheet about the medication, including its side effects, was discussed, and given to the parents/guardian’.

It also included ticked-off statements that alternative non-drug treatments had been discussed, and that it had been explained to parents that medications could be stopped at any time.

Another statement on the checklist reads: ‘It was explained that the ongoing prescribing of this medication by the clinic will only occur if the young person is reviewed regularly for monitoring of response, side effects and other required monitoring by prescribing doctor/ clinicians in the clinic.’

This is also pre-ticked to indicate it had been complied with. At the base of the form, the parents were asked to sign. 

The MoS understands some parents who received the form had never before been asked to give consent by North Kerry CAMHS, even though their child had been prescribed medication for years.

The Halpin report said: ‘Parents and young people reported that they did not receive information or understand the potential for side effects of the medications prescribed.

‘Where medications were prescribed at high or near maximum doses, parents reported that they were not informed that this was the case.’

Retroactive consent sought by the HSE is not mentioned in the Halpin report but it does point to significant gaps in patient files, often relating to consent.

The report divided case files into generic patients and children who also had an intellectual disability.

In the generic cases, the review team found ‘no evidence of documentation of informed consent or written information on medication provided in 68 per cent of the files reviewed’.

And they found the situation was even worse for those with an intellectual disability.

‘In 94 per cent of files reviewed, there was no documented evidence of informed consent or discussion of possible side effects to medication prescribed.’

The side effects included weight gain, stunted growth and raised blood prolactin – abnormal for anyone who is not pregnant.

According to the HSE’s National Consent Policy – implemented in 2022 – informed consent to medication must be received from one or more parents or guardians.

To address consent shortfalls in North Kerry, Halpin advised that ‘full informed written consent from parents should be sought for all classes of medication prescribed’.

The Irish Mail on Sunday asked the HSE and Department of Health if they had any concerns that attempts to seek retroactive consent for medication could be a breach of medical or legal rules.

We also asked about any concerns that attempts to obtain retroactive consent could be seen as part of a cover-up, and if the HSE told the Halpin review team it was seeking such consent.

A HSE South West spokeswoman responded: ‘A routine audit in 2025 identified gaps in documentation and a process was initiated locally to ensure that current consent documentation was available on patient files where records were incomplete or unavailable.

‘The intention of this process was to support improved record-keeping and clinical governance arrangements. It was not intended to retrospectively authorise or legitimise previous clinical decisions.’