Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I listened to the Minister of State's earlier contribution and I was a bit surprised that it was so short. I got very little sense of the State's response to this appalling case. The Minister of State took a lot of time talking about the Brandon case with which there are obvious parallels which we need to address. I acknowledge Deputy Pringle and all of the work he did on the Brandon case. However, this is a separate case and I would have thought, as a Minister of State and a representative of the Government, there would have been a more detailed response to this report. I did not hear that today.

This tragic story began in a mother and baby home. It is a litany of the most appalling official neglect of a young person and adult, as she later became, by the State. It started with an unmarried expectant mother who, like many others at that time, was effectively cast aside. It is an approach we have not entirely stopped yet. The State was not prepared to take responsibility for a vulnerable person and, essentially, handed over that responsibility to the church. The State had a duty of care to this woman and her child but there was an abdication of that responsibility, an approach that was taken to many women and children in those days. The complications during the birth meant that adoption was "out of the question". The mother and baby home had "no services to offer Grace" and handed her back to the State. She was clearly an inconvenience and this was an issue that the State wanted to forget.

Grace did not fall through the cracks, she was abandoned by the State. This vulnerable child, and later adult, was completely forgotten about. She was left to languish in abusive, neglectful and dangerous circumstances for 20 years. There were repeated failures to respond to the awful circumstances in which she was left. A 1996 decision to remove Grace from family X, following sexual abuse allegations by another individual, was not followed through on. For a year, she had no social worker assigned to her. When a new social worker was appointed, Grace's case was not flagged as a priority and no visits took place in the two-year period encompassing 2002 and 2003. When the social worker left their post in 2006, they were not replaced. That sorry tale continues to this day. There is still a shortage of social workers. It is often young and inexperienced social workers who are allocated to vulnerable children. They hang around for a year or two years before moving on and not being replaced. Let us not think this is only an historical issue because it is still going on to this day.

Why did it take 20 years for Grace to be moved? Referring to 20 years of "systemic failings and shortcomings" does not even begin to describe the situation. To essentially dismiss it as a systemic failure will not cut it anymore. We have had too many situations where Ministers and various taoisigh have referred to some of these scandals from our recent and more distant past as systemic failures. That is not what they are. This was a failure, an abdication of responsibility and a dereliction of duty. We need to get to the bottom of that. A system cannot be blamed. The people in the system must be blamed and made accountable. That was one of the key recommendations for the health service arising out of Sláintecare. We called for the HSE to be regionalised and, critically, to have legal accountability for the provision of services and the standards being set. We still do not have legal accountability for senior managers who are well paid to provide services. When those services fail, it is a failure of the management concerned and there must be accountability for that.

Grace, of course, has paid an enormous price for those failings and shortcomings. The HSE has described the 1996 sexual abuse allegations as a missed opportunity to remove her but concerns arose before and after that. There were bruises, burns, erratic behaviour, poor hygiene and prolonged absences from daycare, etc. Still serving public servants who failed Grace must be held accountable.

Grace's placement with family X was supposed to be temporary, yet it became permanent despite blatant concerns. Mr. and Mrs. X had convictions for theft and larceny, yet they were deemed appropriate carers for vulnerable children. Who deemed them appropriate carers?

What were the standards, and who thought it was somehow okay to put a very vulnerable child with people like that?

The Conal Devine report of 2015 found that 47 children were also placed in the care of the family. Judging by the pace of the investigation, it will be a long time before we know exactly what they suffered at the hands of family X.

It seems the intersections between the care decisions and legal obligations are not understood, or are being, or were, completely ignored. This will not do. We need to find out the exact position. We must not have commissions of investigation like the one in question going on indefinitely for years. Justice delayed is justice denied for everybody, especially vulnerable children. We have spent €7 million on this already. We have not even completed phase 1. This is another failure. Unless we can address these issues in a meaningful way, whereby people are held to account, they will continue to occur.

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