THE HEALTH Service Executive (HSE) has been ordered to complete an investigation within the next 48 hours into the handling of a case involving a mother of six who was yesterday found guilty of subjecting her children to incest, neglect and ill-treatment.
HSE social services were in contact with the family over an eight-year period before the children were taken into care in 2004.
Minister of State for Children Barry Andrews expressed “absolute shock and abhorrence” at the case and said he wanted a full account of the HSE’s handling of the case.
The 40-year-old mother was yesterday sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of incest, sexual assault and neglect of her children. The offences took place over a six-year period at the family home in Co Roscommon. Judge Miriam Reynolds said the mother was the first woman in the history of the State to be convicted of incest.
A man on this charge would face life, the judge said. However, the maximum sentence available for a woman was seven years under legislation dating back to 1908.
The court heard evidence of how the woman forced one son to have sex with her on a number of occasions when he was just 13.
The children, who were bullied at school because they were covered with lice and fleas, were forced to live in squalor, in a freezing, filthy home, overrun with mice and rats.
“These children had no chance from the moment they were born,” Judge Reynolds said, as she delivered her sentence. “Any chance of a normal and happy life was stolen from them by the woman who calls herself their mother.”
The judge said she did not know how the children would be able to cope in the future after what they had endured. “Six lives have been destroyed. There is no other way of putting it,” Judge Reynolds said.
One of the teenage daughters has told social workers that she has considered suicide, while another boy has displayed signs of self-harm.
The HSE said yesterday it was continuing to support the family at the centre of the case and had appointed a senior manager from outside the Roscommon area to review the case.
However, Fine Gael’s spokesman on children Alan Shatter said there was “no value” in carrying out an internal review of the case.
Minister for Health Mary Harney said in Limerick last night: “I have to say it’s probably the most appalling case of abuse I’ve ever read against children and I don’t understand how children were left in such a vulnerable position for so long and I want to salute their bravery”.
Judge Reynolds said a major area of concern she had during the hearing was the fact that the children were only taken into care eight years after health authorities first came into contact with the family.
She pointed out that during this time the children had gone to school with head lice “crawling down their faces”, while some were admitted to hospital for nutrition problems.
“Why did nobody do anything? All it takes is for one person to stand idly by. These children were failed by everyone around them,” she said.
