Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This has been a week of shock, shame and horror in view of the failure of this State to protect its most vulnerable citizens.

I am in a state of almost complete disbelief when I try to understand what happened in the case of Grace and the 46 other children placed with this family and how over a sustained period allegations of abuse of Grace and others in the care of this family, and supposedly under the care of the State and the HSE, were not addressed and efforts to blow the whistle were suppressed, or not dealt with, even after the intervention by a Minister. I find it somewhat extraordinary that the Minister has said nothing even at this stage about what happened. When I hear Inclusion Ireland say this is not all in the past but that there are endemic systems failures in dealing with people with intellectual disabilities and non-verbal people and that the abuse of these people goes on every day even now across the State, I cannot say I am terribly confident that we are going to get to the bottom of it. I hope we are and others have followed this in more detail than I have. I do not doubt the Minister of State has listened to what has been said and is doing his best to come up with terms of reference for a commission that will try to get to the bottom of this but it would be difficult to be confident. One can only be hopeful that the commission will get to the bottom of this appalling, incredible and unbelievable set of circumstances. Even beyond that, it has to prompt change if it is being suggested by those who advocate on behalf of people with intellectual disabilities that this is going on, that it is endemic.

I know people who come to my clinic and in my constituency whose hearts are broken by the treatment of their loved ones at the hands of services that should be protecting them. The Minister of State knows that I have raised the case of a couple with concerns about their non-verbal daughter's treatment at the hands of services that we fund although they are outsourced. That is part of the problem, the arm's length responsibility of the State which is outsourcing the protection of some of our most vulnerable people to other agencies and not resourcing or providing the trained experienced staff, the services and joined-up approach to protect and monitor our vulnerable citizens and ensuring the services provided for them are serving their needs, their interests and protecting them fully. I hope this can prompt some change.

Given the appalling circumstances of this case and the rather shambolic response we have seen over the past week, although this is an improvement, one would not be terribly confident. Let us hope this is a step on the road to getting the answers to this incredible, appalling set of circumstances but I think we have a long way to go to address the concerns of those who advocate on behalf of our vulnerable citizens and those with intellectual disabilities in respect of their treatment and the failure of the State to protect them.

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