Government to consider inquiry into southeast abuse claims

The Government is examining the establishment of a statutory commission of investigation into allegations of abuse at a foster home in the southeast.

Minister for Mental Health Kathleen Lynch, supported by Minister for Health Leo Varadkar, said she will ask the Cabinet on Tuesday to establish a statutory inquiry into the alleged events in the foster home.

In a joint statement on Monday evening Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Tánaiste Joan Burton said they had discussed the proposal for a statutory inquiry and it would be considered by Cabinet on Tuesday.

In a statement Ms Lynch said: “We need to be precise and focussed on the questions that remain unanswered. I strongly believe it is in the public interest that we establish the facts surrounding vulnerable people who were placed in this foster home.”

She said the work being carried out by Conor Dignam SC would inform the drafting of the terms of reference for the investigation and she expected this work would be completed by the end of April.

“It is clear that there have been failures in protecting vulnerable people in our care. For a number of reasons, it has been difficult to establish the facts with certainty. This has been acknowledged and I am confident that through the commission of investigation we can resolve this. While this is very much in the public interest, it is also in the interest of those vulnerable people who are directly affected and their families,” said Ms Lynch.

Earlier on Monday Ms Lynch met HSE director general Tony O’Brien to discuss the case and the executive’s handling of it.

Public inquiry

Mr O’Brien is due to appear before the PAC tomorrow amid growing calls for a public inquiry into the affair.

The case centres on a foster home in the southeast into which 47 vulnerable adults and children, with intellectual disabilities, were placed by the health services between 1983 and 2013.

Almost all foster children placed in the home by the South Eastern Health Board/HSE were removed by 1996 after allegations of abuse emerged.

However, one woman, who has an intellectual disability and was placed there in 1989, remained in the home until 2009. It is alleged this woman, referred to as “Grace”, was subjected to serious sexual abuse while at the home. She was removed following an intervention by her birth mother

Among the abuse allegations was alleged rape with implements, leaving one victim with life-limiting internal damage.

It also emerged over the weekend that another vulnerable adult, a private placement between a family and the foster home, remained at the home in the southeast until 2013, four years after the last HSE-funded resident had been removed.

The last placements by the South Eastern Health Board/HSE ceased in 1996.

The Tánaiste said on Monday that “like a lot of people who have been in the care system in this country, I have certainly found the revelations in relation to the case that’s been in the media and in the papers about what happened to some people in care in the southeast extremely disturbing”, she said.

Ms Burton was born in Co Carlow in 1949. Her mother was unmarried and was taken to Temple Hill Mother and Baby Home in Blackrock three months later, where she spent time before being adopted by the Burton family in Inchicore.

“There are probably 50,000 to 60,000 people in Ireland who like myself would have spent part of their childhoods in care and I think it’s very important that the Government address that.

“Obviously there are a number of inquiries under way including by a senior counsel. But . . . my own view is that ultimately that will require probably a judicial inquiry.

“And that’s a very important discussion among other important discussions that we will have at Cabinet tomorrow.”

Care system

Asked if her preference would be for there to be a judicial inquiry, she replied: “I think ultimately that’s going to be required because the issues raised by the case are extremely important.

“And I think anybody that’s been in the care system in Ireland, it’s of very personal significance that we would find out what exactly happened.

“There’s a number of procedures under way at the moment as should happen but I would say that . . . it’ll take probably a little bit of time, we should see a full judicial inquiry.

“The matters are very important.”

Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly, from whose constituency some of the 47 families whose vulnerable adults and children in the home came from, said he would not rule out public inquiry.

“Certainly I would not rule [a public inquiry] out . . . It is shocking. I am very surprised that it is coming out in this way, that it is being dealt with in this way in 2016,” he said.