"From the beginning," said a frustrated professional, "it's been a case of the evil authorities versus this father of 12 who is fast becoming a canonised saint. Well, it's not like that. Life isn't like that. Every case has shades of grey."

But a 13-year-old child has allegedly been brutally raped, is almost 13 weeks pregnant and is in the interim care of the State while three teams of lawyers wrangle about her right to an abortion.

This is no X case, part two. The wrangling is happening simply because the child has no power. Were she middle-class, with access to money and a British abortion clinic, she would by now be just another statistic among Irish under-14s who have resorted to British abortion clinics (of which there were six last year). But her parents and 11 siblings live in abject squalor in a couple of roadside caravans, members of the travelling community, apparently without resources of any kind.

As the roar of the Celtic Tiger echoes across the land, somebody, surely, is to blame. But who? The Eastern Health Board? The relevant county councils? The Government? Or society in general for hundreds of years of traveller oppression?

The problem in analysing this is that the girl's interests must come first and her identity must be protected. This week the Irish Traveller Movement criticised media coverage of the controversy surrounding the case.

"There are only two traveller-specific aspects to this," said Fintan Farrell. "The first is the amount of direct media access to the family and the way it has been reported. The second is the fact that the family is living in very, very poor circumstances, which both exposes them to the media and also puts obvious pressure on them that they could do without."

This is beyond dispute. The area around the campsite has been the scene of media scrums for much of the week, with children reportedly getting £20 notes in exchange for co-operation of various kinds. Part of the problem for the ITM, however, is that the girl's father, a well-spoken, shrewd and articulate man, invited much of the attention by contacting a Sunday newspaper which then made his daughter's plight public.

Since then he has aired his case most eloquently on Morning Ireland and elsewhere. Part of the fall-out from this is a phalanx of exasperated officials and voluntary workers familiar with his circumstances, aware that none of them is emerging from this covered in glory but precluded by issues of confidentiality from coming out and defending themselves.

The man and his family have been known to the authorities for at least 14 years, and sources in the county council jurisdiction where he currently resides say that the family has been given three caravans in the past year, one as recently as July.

Last year they were allocated a house in the area, something which appeared to please the mother greatly. Within months, however, they had moved out again. They have also been in and out of many halting sites - including at least one permanent site - but it appears that the father failed to maintain good relations with members of his own community.

Voluntary bodies such as St Vincent de Paul have also been helpful over the years in various ways, sometimes pitching in with partial grants for the purchase of caravans. Although alcohol is said to be a factor and the father is described again and again as aggressive and argumentative, nobody underestimates his shrewdness.

He has brought a number of civil actions against county councils and won some £7,500. In the past he has repeatedly threatened publicity in a Sunday paper if he felt obstructed. Others attempting to negotiate with him later found he had secretly recorded their conversations. Some find him physically threatening.

Seven years ago this newspaper reported that his wife had brought charges against him for assault but subsequently withdrew them. In court a Garda said that the woman had been taken to hospital with stab wounds. At the time the husband was on bail, facing charges for assaulting his wife with an iron bar. He is alleged by members of his own community to be heavily in debt to the family of the 24-year-old man who allegedly raped his daughter. It is said his wife is obliged to hand over the children's allowance to that family each month.

Meanwhile, prospects for the next generation - the children of this man and woman - look bleak. They have been to school only intermittently and, according to one source, haven't been at all since last Easter. Given these factors and the abject poverty in which the family lives, a question raised repeatedly in the past week is, if a care order is appropriate for the 13-year-old, why not for the other 11 children?

The reason given is that the family received threats for reporting the rape, leading to concern for the child's safety. Although the Eastern Health Board refuses to comment on the grounds of confidentiality, it is known there has been official concern about the family for many years.

In the past year, during at least one case conference attended by a multi-disciplinary group of professionals, extreme concern was expressed about the family's welfare. A subsequent conference planned for Easter failed to take place because the family had moved on and another, planned for August, also failed to go ahead.

Finally, when a conference did take place it was on an emergency basis, this time after the rape of the 13-year-old girl (which happened on August 27th), and strong views were voiced about risks to the other children.

This week in the Dail Mr Austin Currie, of Fine Gael, raised the same question. "Is the Minister aware," he asked, "that this girl is one of a family of 12 and certain questions have to be asked and answers demanded? Is the Minister taking the necessary steps to ensure the welfare and safety of other members of that family, in the circumstances which pertain?"

Revealingly, the reply of the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Cowen, acknowledged Mr Currie's "interest and expertise in this area. All issues relating to the best interests of the family are a matter of consideration by the Eastern Health Board. The issue before the court is taking immediate priority."

Meanwhile, the issue before the court is assuming ever more nightmarish proportions. Only last Sunday, in a published interview, the father was insisting that his daughter was "only a baby herself" and that were she to continue with the pregnancy, it would pose "devastating risks to both her physical and mental health". Yet by midweek he had undergone a dramatic change of heart.

His turnabout seemed to coincide with the appearance at the court of prominent anti-abortion campaigners, who stayed with the parents while the case was heard. Mr Peter Scully, of Family and Life, said later he had been contacted by the parents. Another anti-abortion organisation, Youth Defence, said it, too, had been in touch with the parents and planned to set up an appeal fund to help the girl.

The danger now, say some sources, is that organisations, operating to their own agendas, will throw money at a family clearly unable to cope when a structured approach is what is required.