Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

At the outset, I join colleagues in an all-party expression of thanks to Norah Gibbons and her team for their thoroughness in the course of their inquiry and in the preparation of this report. The children in the Roscommon case were victims not only of horrific abuse and neglect by their parents but also of gross negligence on the part of the Western Health Board, now the HSE, over a 14 year period. It is almost beyond belief that from 1989 until 2004 the voices of these abused children were ignored by people charged by the State with the identification of vulnerable children and with intervention if they were in danger.

The report on this case will be without purpose unless the culpable people in the Western Health Board, now the HSE, are brought to account. Are any of them, especially the most negligent social workers and their management still working in the health or social care services? If so, I want to record that I would view this as being totally unacceptable. The HSE, earlier this year, confirmed that no senior management figures in Dublin were disciplined in any way for the neglect exposed in the HIQA report on foster care services. Will it be the same in this case?

The Government must proceed with the promised constitutional referendum to strengthen the rights of children. While constitutional change will not, I acknowledge, in itself prevent such abuses occurring again, it is an essential foundation on which better protection for children will be built.

In the Roscommon case, the State placed the rights of the family before those of the children even though "family" in this case had ceased to have any meaning and had been degraded to such an extent that it was only the site of gross abuse and neglect of six innocent children. When this case first emerged publicly, the HSE and the Government tried to portray their failures as the result of constitutional constraints. The report demonstrates complete failure and blame lying with the HSE as a result of faulty decision making, ineffective interdisciplinary working, ineffective assessment processes, weak management systems, a failure to learn from previous case reviews and poor knowledge of child care legislation. There was an over-reliance on family support services when it was clearly inappropriate. The protection of the children should have been the priority at all times.

Numerous people reported neglect and abuse of the children before the children were admitted to care in 2004, including teachers, members of the public, relatives and the Garda. Social workers never spoke to relatives of the children other than their parents until August 2000 even though they were involved with the family since 1989. Again, I have to ask why. People employed to ensure children are protected cannot spectacularly fail children with impunity. Nobody ever listened to these children. The desperation and loneliness they must have felt is tragic. How were the social workers not aware of the squalor in which the children were living?

This report is clearly a list of failure after failure. Key reports were missing. A file covering the period prior to 1996 was never found. Case conferences were held as box-ticking exercises for social workers rather than having the objective of ascertaining the needs and welfare of the children. In other jurisdictions, such profound errors of judgment would not go unnoticed. Why was it allowed to continue here?

A plan for a shared parenting arrangement between relatives and the parents was drawn up by the health board in the millennium year of 2000. However, this plan was blocked by the High Court after the parents took a legal action with the financial assistance of what was described in court as a "Catholic right-wing organisation". The health board then decided to seek a full care order for the children. At a case conference, the health board discussed making the children wards of court. However, no action was taken and no explanation was given for this. Another application to the High Court was only made nine months later in summer 2001. The High Court then made a ruling which allowed the health board to apply again for a care order. Incredibly, the people concerned in the health board did not understand this and actually thought they were prevented from doing so. How can that possibly be? How many other children, one must ask, have languished in abusive situations because the responsible officials either did not understand what was happening or could not be bothered to act? How often have quasi-religious groups worked in this way in the background so that abusive parents may maintain sole custody of their children, all on the basis of these groups' twisted concept of family? Are more stories similar to the Roscommon abuse case to emerge in the future?

Given the failures that were allowed to continue for so long in Roscommon, coupled with the failures of the HSE in other cases, it would be surprising if this was to be the only case. There has been the Kilkenny incest report 1993, the Madonna House inquiry 1996, the Kelly Fitzgerald case of 1996 and the Sophia McColgan case, Ferns, the Swim Ireland cases and now, this. There is a plethora of institutional failures in respect of children in this State. What more is to come?

Unqualified social workers were employed to work on this case. The HSE in reply to my Dáil questions, will not provide a guarantee that all of its employees who currently work with children, have been vetted. It states it is its policy to vet them. That is not the same thing. I ask the Minister of State to raise that question to establish the factual position. It is not good enough to have a policy if in fact, it is not being enforced.

The inquiry team expressed concern that the child care service in Roscommon continues to hold a Q mark for quality in child protection, saying it gives the misleading impression - which it certainly does - of high practice standards. Constitutional rights of the family may have proved a deterrent to a certain extent but the Western Health Board could still have intervened under the Child Care Act 1991, to make supervision orders, care orders, interim care orders or permanent care orders. At no point were the children listened to. The mother was able to secure a care order without the children having a right to be heard. No additional training has been provided to social work staff in Roscommon. The HSE manager, Bernard Gloster, has said that this will take place, "later in the year". This commitment is only being made after publication of the report. This is not good enough either. The HSE has had this report since July and is only now planning to examine whether disciplinary action is required against any member of staff. Bernard Gloster says the staff were, "well intentioned". In their case and with all respect, their intentions do not matter. When one is a social worker working with abused children, it is the effect of one's actions that counts. There needs to be a clear marker laid down. Accountability is absolutely essential. Why is the HSE allowed to issue report after report and not change anything? It has said it wishes to, "learn from this report". What did it learn from all the previous reports which I and my colleagues in this House have referred to this evening? It should be remembered that it was 2004 when the Roscommon children rescued themselves. The HSE needs to immediately provide a timeframe for its planned audit of neglect cases in other regions. I ask the Minister of State to address that point in his concluding remarks and assure the House that this will be done. I ask the Minister of State when he reports back to the Dáil on his meeting with the HSE to advise us how the HSE plans to implement the report's recommendations. I ask him to give us a clear indication of the steps now to be taken and within what timeframe. This report cannot join all the others which my colleagues and I have already cited. There has been recommendation after recommendation which have never been implemented.

The Western Health Board-HSE breached the human rights of these children through non-compliance with the terms of the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003, and the State may have violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 3 states that people must have the right to be free from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. Section 3(1) of the Act says that the State must in its functions comply with the terms of the convention.

The European Court of Human Rights has previously held that where the suffering of the child reaches the minimum level of severity required to fall within Article 3, there has been a substantial failing by the State. In the case, Z v UK, child protection services were informed of welfare concerns but failed to act for five years. The children lived in squalor and were seriously emotionally and physically abused. All of the parties agreed that the conditions suffered by the children were such as to constitute inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. The State failed in its positive obligation to protect people from this. There are a number of parallels here with the Roscommon case. The State now needs to ensure, as I and Sinn Féin have called for in the past, that emotional abuse is included in the Guardianship of Infants Act 1964. I ask the Minister of State to take this on board. All outstanding recommendations from the Ryan report, the Murphy report and all other relevant reports, need to be implemented. The promised referendum needs to be held without further delay, not as a panacea and certainly not that it will eliminate the potential for a repeat of such an horrific case as that outlined in the report presented by Norah Gibbons and her team but most surely, as a means of helping to ensure that it will not recur.

See this speech in context