By Michael O’Farrell
Investigations Editor – The Irish Mail on Sunday
DOZENS of shocking cases of intellectually disabled children at risk of sexual abuse in the southeast region were identified by a secret audit sparked by the Grace case – yet overstretched social workers were unable to rescue them.
The audit report, compiled between 2011 and 2013 by one of the two whistleblowers in the ‘Grace’ case, has never been made public.
And according to the whistleblower, a former HSE social worker, many of the victims identified remain in danger today because of a lack of resources.
The Grace scandal concerns the alleged sexual abuse of a mute and disabled girl who was inexplicably left in a foster home for 14 years after other children had been removed by the health board because of concerns about abuse.
The whistleblower said yesterday: ‘There were, as we suspected, dozens of other shocking cases of the abuse of some of the region’s most vulnerable people. We could not help all these people due to the lack of resources. Even after I left last year, many were still outstanding,’ the whistleblower told the MoS.
Details of the Grace case shocked and appalled the nation this week as the HSE was reprimanded for telling the Public Accounts Committee that it had apologised to Grace’s family – when no apology had been made.
Another girl – referred to as Ann – stayed at the home on a part-time private basis for a further four years after the HSE finally acted to remove Grace. In all, more then 40 children stayed at the foster home over a period of decades.
The HSE says that because of legal advice Ann’s family was never told of the risk – even though the HSE was by then investigating allegations of the sexual abuse of Grace at the home.
When the whistleblower, who now works in another jurisdiction, came across the Grace case he was the first social worker to visit the home in six years.
The whistleblower said he was shown hundreds of ‘old files for intellectually disabled people’ when he started working in the southeast in 2007.
‘There were so many it was impossible to know what was in them as there was only one other social worker and we were far too busy,’ he said.
A chance phone call then led him to the Grace file where ‘it was obvious that there were serious outstanding concerns about abuse’.
Following the paper trail, the whistleblower traced the family of a further former resident of the home, known as Sarah, and ‘got the horrible background to the case, which was not recorded on the files’.
‘As we had stumbled into this by chance, I realised that there could be dozens of other serious outstanding abuse concerns on the other files. After completing my report about Grace and Sarah, I wrote other reports outlining the concerns and sent them to HSE management asking for more resources,’ the whistleblower said.
But ultimately he left Ireland in frustration. ‘Instead of hiring more workers and creating a modern social work service, money was wasted on lawyers and management consultants,’ he said.
‘Frustrated by this and the lack of progress, I took my concerns to Leo Varadkar and he and [junior health minister] Kathleen Lynch met me last year. They were very shocked by what they found but I felt that they had little control over the HSE.’ Viewing this week’s furore over the Grace case from afar, the whistleblower said he remained very worried ‘at the child protection and adult protection system in Ireland’.
In particular, the whistleblower is appalled by the revelation this week that Grace was left in the home after a secret, unminuted meeting of three anonymous health board managers in 1996, who did not respond to the risks she was facing and left her in the home.
‘How many other children’s fates were dealt with in this way?’ he asked.
The whistleblower said he believed a statutory commission of inquiry into the Grace case – due to be established by the next government – would expose the truth.
‘When we get the judicial inquiry, I believe it will become much clearer that aspects of the system are a sham and serve the interests of those who have created such a longwinded centralised system.’
Although he complimented the ‘fantastic protections’ now in place for whistleblowers, he said he remained concerned that issues raised by whistleblowers were not dealt with appropriately or promptly.
Others – such as the PAC’s John Deasy – have made the point more forcefully and directly to HSE boss Tony O’Brien in the Dáil.
Mr Deasy said: ‘I put it to Mr O’Brien that this has come about because the two individuals who blew the whistle were not in management,’ he told the PAC at a meeting with HSE management early last year.
‘I believe there was a clique in the HSE for a number of years which shoved all of this under the rug.’
PAC chairman John McGuinness, told the meeting: ‘I support Deputy Deasy in his remarks that this is an effort by the HSE to cover up what went on.’
Last night the HSE said it could not comment on any of the issues related to the Grace case pending the outcome of a review by senior counsel Conor Dignam.
The review – into how the HSE investigated claims of abuse at the Grace case home – was commissioned in December by junior Health Minister Kathleen Lynch and is to be completed by April.
Mr Digman is also examining the procedures used by the HSE in the commissioning of two separate €100,000 reports into the matter. One of those reports was completed by Resilience Ireland – a company part-owned by ex-HSE assistant director Ger Crowley.
Criticising the fact that the contract was not tendered by the HSE, a PAC report published last summer recommended: ‘Former employees of the health service should be assessed for potential conflicts of interest before being awarded a contract by the HSE.’
The HSE told the PAC that the contracts could not be tendered because ‘they deal with sensitive issues that it would not be appropriate or even permissible in some cases to discuss or publish for the purposes of conducting an open tender process’.
