ANALYSIS:The incest case in Roscommon raises disturbing questions over the actions of social services, writes CARL O'BRIEN, Social Affairs Correspondent
SHE CLASPED her trembling hands together, hung her head and stared at the floor.
The colour drained from the face of the 40-year-old mother of six as the judge read out the litany of abuse she had forced her children to ensure at the family home in Roscommon.
She had admitted to forcing her 13-year-old son to have sex with her; her children weren’t properly toilet-trained and had defecated in their underwear at school; she had directed her daughters to tie up their hair to hide their head-lice from teachers.
“These children had no chance from the moment they were born,” Judge Miriam Reynolds said, in a tone which veered into disbelief at times. “Any chance of a normal and happy life was stolen from them by the woman who calls herself their mother.”
There were hard questions, too, for health authorities and the wider community who, the judge said, had failed the children.
Why were the children only taken into care eight years after they first came to the attention of health authorities? How could social services have failed to notice warning signs of abuse at home? Did teachers fail to spot the obvious signs of neglect among the children? Were State agencies communicating properly with each other?
More than a decade after the public was repulsed by official inaction by authorities involving horrific incidences of abuse such as the Kilkenny incest case, Sophia McColgan and Kelly Fitzgerald, many are asking whether the authorities have learned anything.
The six children, now ranging in age from 10 to 19, are split up and living with foster families. However, they are profoundly damaged and still trying to come to terms with the abuse.
Some of the children are suicidal; others have no knowledge of relationships other than one which is violent and abusive.
It is still too early to say why the system failed or why the children were not removed into care sooner. It is clear, though, that the State has a positive duty to protect the lives of children at risk where it becomes aware that they are at risk of harm or injury.
The Childcare Act of 2001 – introduced on foot of scandals such as the Kilkenny incest case – gives health boards extra powers to intervene in cases of suspected abuse. It also includes statutory duties to deliver support services.
However, despite this, it is clear the system is not working in many places. Most child protection and social work teams work against a backdrop of scarce resources and under-staffing, which only allows them to deal with abuse cases on an emergency basis.
The result is a compromised service which is affecting the quality of support available to vulnerable children and their families, and which flies in the face of official policy, which states that children should be admitted to care as a measure of last resort.
Another issue is that young and inexperienced social workers are too often plunged into the deep end of child protection. They are forced to deal with complex care and welfare issues and required to make life-changing decisions for children and their families
A review of child and family services shows that some social work teams are forced to place hundreds of cases of suspected abuse and neglect on waiting lists. The reality in many areas is that some of the cases may never be dealt with, unless they escalate into an emergency in the meantime.
Many of those on the front line of child protection are steeling themselves for a wave of criticism following events in Roscommon. Yet they are the ones who have to walk the tightrope between trying to support families in their homes and taking the catastrophic step of taking children into care.
For some time the policy of health authorities has been to shift resources from child protection – which deals with emergency cases – towards prevention in the form of family support services. There has been little evidence of this in recent years.
Better family support services and a reorganised child protection system are no guarantee that similar cases of system failure may never happen again. However, it would help to ensure that everything possible is being done to intervene in the lives of children earlier and prevent as many children as possible from being needlessly damaged.