Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 19 June 2025

Committee on Children and Equality

Engagement with Children's Rights Alliance

2:00 am

Ms Tanya Ward:

Early intervention for families is utterly critical. We wrote to the committee already about the Daniel McAnaspie case. His case was reviewed by the child deaths review panel. He is called "Ben" in the review. Some of his case was read into the public record at the inquest. The truth of it is the case has not been published. What we see in that case - and the other case that deeply concerns us of Kyran Durnin, who has never been found - is what is clearly important is all the other services that deal with vulnerable families and children. What we see happen in Daniel's case is that all through his life, all the services missed what was happening to him. It was pretty apparent that he was in difficulty at a very young age. The first public record on him is from Crumlin, which showed he was underweight. He was on a poor diet and he was fretful. He was there for a respiratory illness.