HEALTH SERVICE EXECUTIVE:THE COMMISSION that compiled the Dublin diocesan report met significant delays in getting records from the Health Service Executive which it required to conduct its investigations, the report says.
Some documentation received from the HSE was provided as late as this year, even though the commission first wrote to the executive seeking all relevant documents in May 2006.
The HSE explained to the commission in 2006 it would have difficulties finding information on clerical sexual abuse as its social work records were filed in the names of victims rather than perpetrators.
The HSE asked the commission for a list of alleged victims so it could track complaints. The commission refused, as it needed to know if the HSE received complaints not known to the commission. In October 2006, the commission told the HSE it would delay issuing an order for discovery of documents if it provided by November 3rd a timescale for delivery.
On November 3rd, the HSE told the commission there were 114,000 social work files covering the period involved (1975-2004), and these were in up to 50 locations. An estimated half a day would be needed to read and consider each one.
“The commission concluded that it would take nearly 10 years to complete this process,” the report says.
A few weeks later, a senior social worker with the HSE gave evidence that she had asked relevant people to make every effort to look in their area for records.
“The commission formed the impression that the HSE was not adopting a systematic approach to locating records.”
Initially the HSE provided documentation in relation to 12 priests, but records provided by the archdiocese and religious orders showed contact with the health boards in at least 11 other cases.
The commission became aware of a further complaint in June this year as its report was being finalised. This had been made to a health board in 2002 and was reported to the HSE by the archdiocese in May 2009. The HSE did not notify the existence of this complaint to the commission.
The commission concluded the health boards and the HSE did not properly record cases of clerical child sexual abuse.
Separately, the report says the law “does not provide adequate powers to the health authorities to promote the welfare of children who are abused, or in danger of being abused, by people outside the family and, in particular, by people who have privileged access to children”.
It also says the law should be clarified to confer on the HSE a duty to communicate concerns about a possible child abuser.
The health authorities had little involvement in many complaints against priests investigated by the commission.
In those it did deal with, some but not all were well handled.
The commission noted difficulties the HSE had in recruiting sufficient social workers in the 1990s had still not been resolved.