Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I raise an issue that is very personal to a constituent of mine named William Porter, who was falsely accused of abusing both his son and daughter. These accusations destroyed his life. His family has suffered hugely, with William himself developing significant mental and physical health problems as a result of the stress this has caused. It now seems incredible that these false claims were believed for so long by the authorities and that Tusla seemingly even fabricated a confession from William.

The situation began in 2010 when William was falsely accused of physically abusing his 13-year-old son, who lived with him in Donegal. His young daughter lived in the North and William was not believed by social services there, despite his son claiming it was a false accusation and that no such incident happened. It took Tusla three years to investigate the alleged incidents. No appropriate explanation has ever been given by Tusla as to why it took three years to investigate the matter. As a result of the delay in investigating these false allegations, all attempts by William to have access to his daughter in the North and to clear his name were met by accusations of harassment by social services staff in the North.

Inexplicably, when Tusla did investigate three years later, it fabricated its records, claiming that William had confessed to a Tusla official to abusing his son.

See this speech in context