Brandon case: Outside expert to head review of Donegal adult disability services

A HSE review of the safety of vulnerable, disabled adults in centres in Co Donegal should not be limited to that county but “should also include national governance and oversight structures”, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) has warned.

Correspondence between the watchdog and the HSE, seen by The Irish Times, also show Hiqa’s demand that the review not confine itself to current safeguarding concerns, but also examine “responses to historical safeguarding concerns in centres”.

The documents, released under Freedom of Information legislation, come as a report on previously examined files on a deceased resident of the Ard Greíne Court campus for intellectually disabled adults in Stranorlar, referencing an alleged rape in 1992, is completed.

Concerns about an alleged rape by the former resident were noted in the “Brandon” report by the National Independent Review Panel (NIRP) published last year. It found “Brandon” – a pseudonym for the former resident – had perpetrated at least 108 sexual assaults on upwards of 18 intellectually disabled adults, most of them non-verbal, between 2003 and 2016.

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Brandon was moved from Ard Greíne Court in 2016 to a private nursing home and died there in 2020.

Though the time frame for the NIRP investigation was January 2003 to December 2018, it found the first recorded incident of abuse was in 1997, when Brandon had his hands on another resident’s genitals, with three further incidents by the end of 2002. It says: “these earlier records suggest this sexualised behaviour had been ongoing and known to managers… before 2003″.

Brandon’s abuse of his peers and the HSE’s serious mismanagement of him finally came to light when a whistleblower approached local Independent TD Thomas Pringle in 2016. His efforts led to the establishment of a “look back” review of files that year and the NIRP investigation in 2018.

The NIRP report notes the HSE agreed to review Brandon’s files before 2003… “and found one reference to sexual intercourse in 1992 between Brandon and [a resident]… it was unclear whether this was consensual or not”.

On foot of the Brandon report, and serious ongoing concerns by Hiqa about the HSE’s management of its disability services in the county, the HSE has established a review of its safeguarding, incident and risk management across its 30 centres for disabled people in Donegal.

Its main concerns, it says, are “continued themes of regulatory noncompliance – notably safeguarding and governance”. It is being led by Tim Hanly, national head of the HSE’s safeguarding office.

Commenting on the terms of reference, in a letter dated March 7th, 2022, Hiqa’s deputy chief inspector of social services, Finbar Colfer, said: “The review of governance structures should not be limited to local… level but should also include the overall national governance and oversight structures used to identify and respond to issues that may arise at [community] level.

“The review does not make reference to a review of historical safeguarding concerns in centres. It may be that this is being undertaken separately, but the outcome of that review should also be shared with the chief inspector,” he added.

Separately Minister of State for disabilities, Anne Rabbitte, is finalising terms of reference for an independent review of safeguarding and governance across HSE disability centres in Donegal. She has identified a number of possible individuals to lead it, with her preference being for someone from outside the jurisdiction.