Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I said this afternoon - and I am happy to repeat it now - that Deputy Deasy has campaigned with compassion and determination to bring this particularly gruesome story to the full light of day. I also acknowledge the work done by Daniel McConnell, Fergus Finlay, Colm Ó Mongáin, Deputy McGuinness, who is present, and others.

We got two long-delayed reports last week about the service user known to us as Grace. We knew well before their publication that these reports were inadequate. They were acknowledged as inadequate following the report by Conor Dignam, SC. We also knew that this further commission of investigation which we are now charging with this task was inevitable. Nevertheless, we have gathered some more detail about the appalling mismanagement of the Grace case. We discovered that although the HSE had hidden behind the ongoing Garda inquiries as its reason for not publishing these two reports, it has been stated now the HSE did not contact the Garda about these reports until three years after work on them was concluded. At least, that is the information presented to the nation by RTE in documents it received from the HSE under the Freedom of Information Act. This is, among other things, another story about our treatment of whistleblowers and it gives rise to huge concerns and anxieties. How can they be cast aside and ignored as they were? How is the greatest consideration always the defence of the institution and how can self-preservation lead to concealment, cover-up and wholesale dereliction of duty?

I said earlier today that we are well used now to apologies in this House. There are many particular revelations that have necessitated belated apologies to women in particular for organised, systematic suppression and mistreatment that has gone on for decades - in essence, since the foundation of our State. Church, State and other powerful institutions operated to repress the children who stayed at home and sent others into exile. That lasted for the first 50 or 60 years after Independence. We are used now to apologising for the past as if it was a different country inhabited by different people now long past, operating under laws that have now been repealed. This case is different. This is not about historical ill-treatment. This case belongs to the modern era and it survived into this century. This modern Irish State has treated Grace maliciously. We failed a young woman who needed us and when we were nearly done failing her, we kept on failing her. Here we stand again. Over time, apologies start to lose meaning and saying sorry begins to sound hollow. It is long past time to apportion blame. Previously, we were satisfied with fault-finding at institutional level, collective remorse, collective vows to do better and another line drawn in the sand, but not in this case. In this case, Grace was not properly protected until 2009. Reckless endangerment became a criminal offence in this State in 1997. If ever a crime was aptly named, it is this one. Anyone who has had even a cursory look at the reports on Grace would describe her situation as a truly perilous one, a case where she was left in danger due to the recklessness.

The Children Act 2001 replaced earlier criminal law by making it "an offence for any person who has the custody, charge or care of a child wilfully to .... cause or procure or allow the child to be assaulted [or] ill-treated". As this is a case in which modern law applies to recent events, there is no good reason there should not be a full criminal investigation into the most serious offences against children in care that can be imagined. I asked about this earlier today and I am still waiting for confirmation.

Why have the Minister and the Government been reticent, misleading and wrong in what they have said about the commission’s terms of reference? Conor Dignam, SC, recommended under the heading "Care and Decision Making in respect of Others" that the commission should investigate a range of matters broader than the Grace case, including the care received by all people placed in this foster home. For some reason, the Government decided not to include the terms of reference in its draft order that is before the Dáil. We found them eventually on the Department of Health’s website so that we could have a proper debate about these fundamentally important matters. As other speakers have said, it takes some time to find them on the website. The terms of reference we have seen differ from the Dignam proposals in one crucial respect. Despite what the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, has said and despite the explicit assurances the Taoiseach gave me during Leaders' Questions this afternoon, the Government’s terms of reference are not modular and do not give the commission the discretion to investigate further. Having taken preliminary legal advice, my judgment is that the terms of reference operate to prohibit the commission from making further investigation. Others have quoted what the commission will be specifically empowered to do under these terms of reference. It will be able to "specify the scope of any further investigations which the Commission considers warranted in the public interest having regard to the facts established" by it already.

The only capacity we are giving to this inquiry outside of the Grace case is to scope out a potential further inquiry. That is it. It can carry out a scoping exercise but no more. That is hugely different from what Conor Dignam wanted. This must not be the case, even initially. It cannot be simply and solely an inquiry into the care provided to Grace. It must go further. It should be an inquiry into the care provided by the South Eastern Health Board, including in particular the care it provided through the use of placements with family X, its monitoring of that care and its response to any concerns. To put it bluntly, it should not simply be a Grace inquiry; it should be an X Inquiry. It is not possible or practicable to atomise the issues in the way that is now proposed. Grace was the longest resident in that home. She was there for 20 years or so. She was probably the resident least able to complain. She is still not in a position to give her own account. Meanwhile, there are 47 other directly contemporaneous witnesses. It makes no sense to postpone consideration of their cases. They are eyewitnesses to what happened in real time. How can their evidence and direct experiences be segmented out and postponed to another time and another inquiry? We need to get things right for Grace this time. We have to take the time and the care to do just that.

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