Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)

This is one of the most upsetting things that has happened in this country that anyone here is likely to be speaking on for a long while. Grace, as she has been called, was intellectually and physically disabled after complications at birth. She is non-verbal and was born to a teenage mother in a mother and baby home. That is a very difficult start in life. She was then placed in foster care, that is, the care of the State. Grace lived with a foster family in the south east of the country for ten years after concerns were first raised about alleged neglect and abuse in that home. It is actually incredible how many warnings were given. While people are told to speak up if they see something, these warnings were not acted upon. We still have no answers as to why.

The family of another girl who stayed at the house raised concerns in 1992. The Brothers of Charity stopped placing people in that home. Grace showed signs of abuse in 1995. While in 1996 the health board removed her, this was overturned and she was put back. Plans to remove Grace in 1991 and 2001 were not implemented. We have this horrific catalogue of errors. We again see a whistleblower coming forward in 2007. Grace’s own birth mother happened to request that she be removed when hearing of the abuse.

Increasing pressure pushed the Government to set up a commission in 2017. While it was due to report after two years, it was continually postponed. Majorie Farrelly was the sole investigator chosen. More questions need to be answered in this regard. There needs to be serious questions about the type of investigations we set up. There seems to be an inordinate amount of faith in people in the legal profession, be they senior counsels or judges, to conduct investigations. We are now left with an investigation which published 2,000 pages and six volumes and cost €13.6 million but did not make any major findings against the family or establish that Grace had been subjected to abuse, either emotional or sexual. To say there was no proof goes against everything the whistleblowers and so many others said. It was the reason she was taken out of that home in the first place and paid massive compensation by the State.

How can we justify that Grace was not interviewed for this investigation? While I am aware she is profoundly disabled and non-verbal, it has been heavily criticised that ways were not found to do that. The second phase of the investigation did not go ahead which was to investigate the placement of other people into that foster home, and also into Fran, one of the children who was in the same house as Grace. Fran’s family came out yesterday talking about the experiences Fran had, in particular the extreme frustration with the report, and that submissions made on behalf of Grace were not included in the report in the end. The family similarly were frustrated that the State stopped the investigation into the second part around the experience of the other children, with Fran being one of those children. Why has that decision been taken? Fran’s family also gave evidence.

While there are so many issues that I do not have time to tease out, I wish to bring out some of the wider issues from this. First, the wider fact is that the State does not care about children in this country and it certainly cares even less about disabled children. The treatment Grace had and the many failures speak to that.

Tusla was found in 2024, as an example, to have paid out €14 million to two for-profit agencies to provide accommodation for children. The staff in one of those agencies were not vetted and did not undergo child protection training despite dealing with vulnerable children. It was also found that this company was used to house two children in need of emergency accommodation after the company was blacklisted. Similarly, in a 2024 report, the Child Law Project found that when a child needed care for disability in specialised units, no staff were available. There are many issues being raised again and again. HIQA found earlier this year that Tusla has serious issues with a lack of social workers, particularly in the Dublin area where 300 children are left without support and stuck on a waiting list where they are deemed as low or medium priority. We know, of course, of the CDNT waiting lists. In my area, the waiting list is up to seven years in one part of Dublin West for children with disabilities and neurodivergence. While Tusla has noted this, it has repeatedly referred to the increased call for services. In its report for last year, in the first nine months, there were more than 70,000 referrals, which is a 2% increase compared to the same period in 2023. It is more than likely, when the final number appears, that 2024 will show the highest number of referrals in its history. Despite this and the acknowledgement by Tusla that it would need 500 social workers to meet the need, at the minute, according to the head of the Irish Association of Social Workers, that number is approximately 250.

These are the issues facing the Minister. Action is needed in order that there is the necessary recruitment, that housing is built for essential workers and that wages and conditions will attract people to stay working in the difficult environment of social work and caring professions. There are so many other issues on this matter. There needs to be a massive apology to Grace’s family for what she experienced and, of course, to Grace herself.

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