HEALTH AUTHORITIES have confirmed that a special review team is to examine how social services handled the case of a mother who was found guilty this week of the abuse and neglect of her eight children.
The 47-year-old woman received a 24-year prison sentence on Thursday after pleading guilty to the assault, ill-treatment and neglect of her children over a seven-year period.
The children – two sons and six daughters – were severely beaten with whips and sticks on a regular basis and were forced to beg for food. Sometimes they were locked in confined spaces for extended periods.
Judge Raymond Groarke, who suspended the final 16 years of the sentence, said it was “incredible” that the abuse could take place over so many years in a community with little or no intervention.
The Health Service Executive confirmed in court it had knowledge of the family from 2000 onwards and was aware the mother had a serious alcohol addiction for many years.
Gordon Jeyes, the HSE’s national director for children and family services, said yesterday that the case had been referred to a 15-person national review panel, led by independent chair Dr Helen Buckley of Trinity College Dublin, and an expert in child protection issues.
He emphasised, however, that frontline social services faced a very difficult job determining the extent of neglect facing families and could only act on information that was known to them.
Mr Jeyes said the review panel’s report will be provided to Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald as soon as it is completed.
This review panel for serious incidents has been established in line with recommendations by the health standards watchdog, the Health Information and Quality Authority.
The panel was designed to create a standardised and systematic way of completing reviews of serious incidents, including deaths of children in care.
At Galway Circuit Criminal Court on Thursday, the mother was charged with a range of offences that occurred at various locations between May 2002 and June 2009.
The court heard that one of the daughters who was born with physical disabilities was found strapped into a filthy buggy by a social worker in 2002.
The child’s face was bruised and the room where she was found was cold and strewn with dirty nappies. The social worker advised the mother to bring the child for treatment to a local hospital to treat her breathing difficulties. The mother never did so.
One of the older sisters later told gardaí she regularly saw the young child bleeding from her private parts.
She said she found blood-soaked nappies piled in a press and when she was six years old and potty-trained, her mother pretended she was disabled to claim more money.
Despite pleading guilty, the mother has denied neglecting or abusing her children. She told gardaí she was never influenced by her husband and was not afraid of him.
Reports from care workers said the children ate continually when taken into care at first and did not know the names of basic fruit and vegetables.
