Ms Celine O'Connor:

Social workers are often told we focus on what goes wrong as opposed to what goes right, but it is when something significantly horrible happens that we get involved. We look at the strengths of everybody around us, that is, the victim, the team, the staff, family members and communities. We have safeguarding plans that involve local postmen and the neighbour down the road. Everybody can be involved in protecting our most vulnerable members of society. We sometimes find that communities are already involved in safeguarding. We will get a phone call from a neighbour or the postman who has not seen somebody to say he or she is a bit worried and to ask whether we can get involved. There is that knowledge on the ground. During the Covid pandemic we have seen our communities grow again. We have seen those community call services come together and start looking out.

We do not have a memorandum of understanding, MOU, with the Garda in respect of sharing information in the same way Tusla and the Garda share information about perpetrators and victims. The staff of the HSE are obliged to report all sexual offences and physical assaults causing harm under the Criminal Justice (Withholding of Information on Offences against Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act 2012. That is a type of mandatory reporting, but that same reporting does not have to come to the HSE safeguarding teams. Again, it is a matter of information sharing back and forth.

Senator O'Loughlin asked about timelines in respect of working with perpetrators. It is very difficult because when we have to interview people who have a disability, their recollection of what might have happened may be impacted. Their speech and their cognitive abilities can be quite significantly impaired. Their knowledge of sexuality and sex and what has happened to them can be challenged because they may not be aware that what has happened to them is wrong. Senator O'Loughlin talked about education. Looking around the room, I see there are many of us of a certain age who would have got very limited sex education in school. There are women our age in disability services who are now being moved out to decongregated settings and who have had no sex education. Preparing people to move is really important. This is not just a once-off education. It needs to be repeated because, again, people's cognitive abilities to hold information may be very impaired. We have seen a lot of romance scams whereby people chat up people online. Senator O'Loughlin and I, who have a decent level of education, will see through the messages, but they are written in such a way that they seek to pick up people who have vulnerabilities and who do not understand. We deal with people in romances with people who could be anywhere in the world. They send them money. Their quality of life is impacted because they feel they need to send that money or the person will not be in touch with them. We have seen people with disabilities brought into criminal gangs, prostituted and used to deliver drugs. It is getting more and more complex, and we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg.

There is so much hidden abuse in our services and in our communities, so training is really important. I refer to training staff to look out for the various types of abuse, drilling down into what is abuse and what are the signs and symptoms of financial abuse, sexual abuse and physical abuse. Sometimes they are not that obvious. Particularly in residential centres, there will be people with unexplained bruising, but they may be on medication or may have thrashed around a bit. However, staff need to ask questions or use body maps if they keep seeing the same bruises, looking at them, recording them and looking at what the situation leads to. There may be repeated urinary tract infections. There may be a comment that the person has a certain condition, but could the infections be a result of repeated sexual assault? It is a matter of asking those kinds of questions and that curiosity, keeping one's mind open as to whether there could be another explanation for something. We frequently have clients who tell us they told people repeatedly they were being hit, assaulted or sexually assaulted but that nobody believed them because maybe the language was not right. We have the cultural idea that older women, in particular, or women with a disability are not sexually attractive to others. We know, however, that for perpetrators of sexual offences it is not necessarily about attractiveness but about power and control and getting away with it. They groom the person, they groom the system and they groom everybody around them. How many stories have we heard of people who were pillars of society? They were in the local GAA, worked in the services, always did the extra shifts, were there for everybody and covered for staff. Again, it is a matter of asking why they are covering or why they are doing only the night shifts. Why do people flinch when they come in the room? Why do people say they do not want that person with them? Why do we not listen to those messages and have a chat with the person and look at the matter?

We have a fantastic workforce throughout our service. We know that offenders are a tiny part of our population, but they can do awful damage. We want to, and have to, trust our colleagues when we go to work. If there is a question, however, or if somebody makes us feel uncomfortable, we should report that to our line managers and should challenge those people. Often when we have reviews we will hear that everybody knew about someone or everybody had a sense as to what was happening but that they thought somebody else would report the matter. Training needs to tell people not to be bystanders. When we give training we often talk to staff about being brave, standing up, being counted and being the voice for people who do not have a voice. I loved the comment about the big voice and the small house. What we see is that when people get out, they get more control over the small things in their lives. They start being able to raise the bigger issues. They are allowed to choose whether to have a cappucino or a latte or whether to go to the park or to put a bet on a horse - all those small things we would not even consider. They will start to tell us the bigger things. They will start to say they do not like when a certain person is on shift or do not like it when a brother or sister visits. That builds up the trust, that listening ear and that curiosity, and that is what will help protect lives.

The other thing that will help protect adults is all the early intervention services, getting those skills in place and having the diagnoses done early. That is ongoing. It is a lifetime support for the person, not a once-off. With mental health services, there is now the Housing First model. That is what disability needs as well: wrap-around housing supports for people in the community.