{"id":367275,"date":"2026-03-27T02:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T02:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/367275\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T02:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T02:48:09","slug":"limerick-mother-of-21-year-old-who-tragically-died-says-ministers-apology-is-too-little-too-late","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/367275\/","title":{"rendered":"Limerick mother of 21-year-old who tragically died says Minister’s apology is “too little, too late”"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE MOTHER of the late Eve Cleary, who died within hours of being discharged<\/a> from University Hospital Limerick (UHL), has said an apology from the Minister for Health is \u201ctoo little, too late.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melanie Cleary has been campaigning in her daughter’s name and memory, since not long after she died in 2019, at the age of 21.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

She received an apology from the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill this month, which she said has \u201calmost the exact same wording\u201d as the one she received from UHL.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mrs Cleary lost her daughter on July 21, 2019, after she had spent 17 hours in the emergency department. She died from a blood clot, just hours after being discharged from the hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mrs Cleary said that even though Eve is gone seven years this summer, all of this causes her to relive the pain of the loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s painful to relive it again and again and again,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Mrs Cleary met with the Minister in August and asked for a State apology.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe apology she gave us – we had the same from UHL last July with almost the exact same wording,\u201d Mrs Cleary said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cFor us and for my children, we just wanted for somebody to say they were sorry and that an investigation has been opened up into Eve’s death and there was no investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like we were being strung along,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She stressed that she would have liked a public apology for the sake of Eve’s siblings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mrs Cleary said that the \u201ctreatment of this has been disgraceful\u201d and she added that communication between their family and the previous management of UHL was \u201chorrendous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has never been recognised that Eve’s death could have been prevented,\u201d Mrs Cleary said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was 21 – she was healthy until she went out there (to UHL),\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the apology, which has been seen by the Limerick Leader, the Minister said: \u201cI recognise and accept that the manner in which you were interacted with and communicated with by the UL Hospital Group in the aftermath of losing Eve fell far below what should have been expected, and indeed far below what you deserved particularly at such a distressing time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The apology continued: \u201cThese inadequacies undoubtedly caused additional hurt and distress for your family at a time of unimaginable grief and over the past few difficult years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may never know exactly how many lives the Eve Protocol will save, or how many people’s quality of life will be preserved because of your work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs Cleary pointed out that almost from the beginning there have been delays and issues in relation to communications and information being relayed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She said initially they were told there would not even be an inquest, which is the only opportunity for a family\u00a0 to hear a timeline and exact evidence from people who were involved in Eve’s care.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEve was a great girl, she had a thing about telling the truth and her name has done so much now with the protocol – Eve probably saves lives every day – that legacy should be respected by them,\u201d Mrs Cleary said.<\/p>\n

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ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE MOTHER of the late Eve Cleary, who died within hours of being discharged from University Hospital Limerick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,2120,61,60,1396,17229],"class_list":["post-367275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-hse","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-limerick","tag-university-hospital-limerick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}