THE number of confirmed child abuse cases in the Mid Western Health Board area has increased by 323 per cent in the past seven years. This is according to figures issued by the board in its Review of Child Care and Family Support Services, which was published yesterday.
Reports of child abuse which require investigation have increased by 364 per cent since 1989, while the 323 per cent increase in confirmed cases refers mainly to cases of neglect according to the report.
The biggest rise in both reported and confirmed cases of abuse was in 1992, when 655 reports resulted in 388 cases being confirmed. These statistics come against a background of 178 reports of abuse in the area in 1989, and just 56 confirmations.
Last year saw a record number of concerned calls, with the health board being asked to investigate 826 cases. Records for the year are still incomplete, although abuse was detected in 237 cases. The remainder are still under investigation.
As part of its response to the problem, the board has strengthened its professional services, and developed new ones, including pre school family therapy and money advice services.
In the report, abuse is broken down into categories of sexual, emotional and physical abuse and neglect.
The number of reported sex abuse cases in 1994, the last year for which full figures are available, was 156, and of these 38 were confirmed. This compares to figures for 1989 in which 71 reported cases resulted in 19 confirmations; while in 1995 there were 208 reports of sex abuse involving children. Sixty four of these have now been confirmed, while others are still being investigated.
Neglect featured as the largest reason for calls to the Health Board, with 313 reports last year, of which 77 were confirmed. In the previous year, 218 calls reporting neglect resulted in 72 cases being confirmed.
The area with the largest increase in overall abuse was the East Limerick Tipperary area, where there was a 43.7 per cent increase in reported cases and a 105 per cent increase of confirmed cases.
The corresponding increases in Clare were 28.5 per cent and 50 per cent respectively, while there was a decrease in both reported and confirmed cases in Limerick city.
According to the report, there are "no absolute definitions of abuse". Most definitions describe abusive incidents as beatings, sexual interference and neglect.
However, practitioners tend to consider both the incident and the context in which it occurs, before they will define situations as abusive.