THE FAMILY of murdered teenager Daniel McAnaspie who went missing while in the care of the Health Service Executive has called for a public inquiry into his death.
The body of the 17-year-old, who was originally from Finglas in Dublin, was found dumped in a drain on farmland in Co Meath last Thursday afternoon. A postmortem revealed he had been stabbed to death.
His elder sister Catríona McAnaspie said yesterday it was clear her brother did not get the care he needed while in State care.
“Daniel was supposed to be in the care of the HSE. It is clear he needed help that he did not get. This is not the first time a child has died in the care of the State but my family are determined to ensure that it will be the last. We do not intend to let Daniels death be in vain.” she said.
“My family intends to seek a full public inquiry into the death of our brother and the failure of the HSE to protect his life. The HSE will not be allowed to hide its failures in another private internal report. Questions will be asked publicly and answers will be demanded. It is only through rigorous public examination of all the circumstances of Daniel’s death that we stand any chance of saving the lives of other children who are at risk,” she added.
One of six siblings whose father died in 1996 and whose mother died in 2007, Daniel could not read or write and had been in the care of the HSE since 2003.
He was living at a property in Donabate, north Co Dublin, run by HSE personnel when he failed to return there on the night of February 25th last.
His sister’s statement, issued through family solicitor Michael Finucane, also said the family has endured “a living hell” since the night he disappeared. They also said the discovery of his body was leaked to the media almost immediately and before most of the family had learned that he had been found. They now await the return of his body so funeral arrangements can be finalised.
Earlier yesterday his sister told RTÉ News that had the HSE listened to the family, maybe Daniel would still be alive. The family said Daniel faced a daily battle to find a bed for the night during his time in care, turning up at Garda stations at 8pm asking for help and often ending up being assaulted in hostels where some of his belonging were robbed.
They also said he wanted to learn to read and write but lost a place in a special school when he moved in with his Aunt Sabrina for a period but when they tried to get him into other schools, no one would enrol him. And when he did not attend school nobody knocked on the door to see why.
Asked to comment on the family’s concerns yesterday the HSE reissued a statement similar to one produced on Sunday saying it extended its deepest sympathy to the family and that there would be an investigation into his death.
Under recently published guidelines from the Health Information and Quality Authority all deaths of children in care must be reviewed by a panel of childcare experts.
“The HSE is currently in the process of appointing these individuals, a process which is expected to be completed shortly, after which the review into Daniel’s death would commence without delay,” it said.
Mr Finucane said he had concerns about the review the HSE spoke of and about it appointing the review team. More than 20 children have died in the care system over the past decade. While the majority died in controversial circumstances Daniel McAnaspie is the first to have been murdered.
Fine Gael’s spokesman on children Alan Shatter said there was widespread concern that the HSE had utterly failed to learn lessons from what went wrong in the case of Tracey Fay who died in 2002 and David Foley who died in 2005.