Neighbours of a woman facing charges of neglect and cruelty towards eight of her children described seeing them malnourished, neglected, poorly dressed and wandering about on their own, sometimes late at night.
The trial at Galway Circuit Criminal Court heard evidence that two neighbours regularly fed the woman’s two sons, while one bought them clothes because she felt sorry and wanted to care for them.
Prosecuting barrister Conor Fahy said that records obtained by the Garda from the Department of Social Protection showed the mother had received €160,726 in social welfare payments between July 2006 and May 2011.
Payments
This included €52,963 in child benefit payments during those years, €63,691 in single-parent allowances, €36,121 in rent allowances for the five houses the family rented in as many years, and various additional payments, such as back-to-school allowances and supplementary welfare allowances for the children.
The now 39-year-old woman, who cannot be named in order to protect the identity of the children, has pleaded not guilty to 44 charges of child abuse between September 1st, 2006, and May 12th, 2011, by wilfully assaulting, ill-treating, neglecting, or abandoning the children, or causing or allowing the children to be assaulted, ill-treated, neglected, or abandoned, contrary to section 246 (1) and (2) of the Children Act 2001.
Six of the woman’s children were taken into care in May 2011 and have lived with different foster parents ever since. The others live with members of the extended family.
The trial, which began last week, heard evidence yesterday from social worker Aoife Staunton, who said that social services had been liaising with the family since 2006, after gardaí found the eldest two girls, who were then aged nine and seven, being cared for by a drunken man late at night near a dangerous water course.
The mother was drinking in a nearby pub and could not be contacted.
In care
The children were placed in care that night and were returned to their mother the following month after she and her then partner rented a house.
“On some occasions the home appeared to be fine, and at times the mother was there, but as time went on it became clear things were deteriorating at a rapid pace and I had serious concerns by May 2011,” Ms Staunton said.
She recalled visiting the house on the morning of May 12th. She saw that the second eldest child, who was then 11, was at home caring for a baby and a toddler. The mother was absent from the home while her partner was present. He had two black eyes.
Ms Staunton said she returned to the home later and found the partner gone and two strange men in the house. One man, who answered the door, was intoxicated, while the other was asleep in one of the children’s beds. The woman’s children were taken into care that afternoon.
“They were placed in different places. They didn’t end up living together,” Ms Staunton said.
Shane Costelloe SC, prosecuting, asked the witness if she was aware – prior to the children going into care in 2011 – of allegations of physical violence against the children. Ms Staunton said she was unaware of any such allegations.
“Following the children going into care, there were allegations,” she said.
Various neighbours gave evidence to the trial earlier.
‘No dinner’
One woman said she used to feed the woman’s two little boys “because they had no dinner . . . They would have runners that were too big for them and there would be holes in them or the soles would be coming off”.
“At weekends, they would come to the house at 8.30am and I would feed them as well.”
Another neighbour said she also cared for the two boys.
“I would ask them if they were hungry and I would give them something to eat,” she said. “The more neglected they became, the more I looked after them. I bought them clothes, and my sister did too.”
The trial continues.