A jury at the Dublin District Coroner's Court has returned a verdict of death by suicide at the conclusion of an inquest into the death of 25-year-old Seán O'Neill, whose body was discovered on the grounds of Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown in March 2017. The verdict was delivered on Thursday following a three-day hearing examining the circumstances surrounding his disappearance from the hospital's emergency department.

The court heard that O'Neill had been arrested on public order grounds in the early hours of March 8, 2017, and made two suicide attempts while in custody at Ashbourne Garda station. He was subsequently brought by ambulance to Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown at approximately 5:40 a.m. CCTV footage showed O'Neill leaving the emergency department shortly after 7 a.m. that morning, with medical and security personnel briefly following him as he walked away. His partner, Sophie Reed, testified that he called her from a hospital phone around 7 a.m. to say goodbye. His remains were discovered more than 24 hours later in an overgrown area roughly a five-minute walk from the emergency department.

Testimony presented during the inquest highlighted significant gaps in police record-keeping following O'Neill's departure from the facility. An investigator for the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) testified that there was no record of Garda activity for 17 hours after two officers initially responded to reports of his disappearance. Furthermore, court evidence established that no details regarding initial inquiries were entered into the Garda Pulse database, and responding officers testified they had no recollection of searching the grounds or viewing CCTV footage on the morning he vanished.

The conclusion of the hearing follows years of legal delay, including an initial inquest in 2020 that was abandoned after it emerged that Garda civilian staff were among the jurors selected by An Garda Síochána.