THE Director of Public Prosecutions is to proceed with charges of child sex abuse against a former staff member at Trudder Rouse, the Co Wicklow home for traveller children.
The man will be charged in Wicklow District Court on July 16th. He was one of six care workers about whom allegations of physical and sexual abuse were made by former residents.
Another man at the centre of allegations at the home died after he left the country in the early 1980s, when the allegations were first made.
Gardai began their five month investigation into Trudder House in Newtownmountkennedy last August. More than 200 statements were taken from travellers who were placed in the home as children. A file was sent to the DPP last December.
Yesterday a former resident at Trudder House, Mr James McDonagh, said he was outraged that only one case was going to come to court and that management at the home will not have to answer questions publicly about how they handled the matter.
A man employed by the Eastern Health Board at the time alleges that he expressed concern to the Eastern Health Board about mistreatment of traveller children at Trudder Rouse in the early, 1980s. Allegations of homosexuals activities and beatings were also, made by a number of children at about the same time.
One of the boys making the complaints had been at the centre since it was set up in 1975. The boy became emotionally disturbed. He was later found guilty, of murder and sent to the Central Mental Hospital, Dublin.
It is understood that the Gardai was called in following those complaints and one staff member, was suspended. A warrant was" issued for his arrest, and he spent, one night in a Garda station. He returned to work before his suspension had elapsed and was sacked. He then left the country.
Many of the children who attended Trudder House had disturbed backgrounds. Many were sleeping rough in Dublin. Three later committed suicide. Two were found guilty of murder, two others were later convicted of drape.
Trudder House closed last April because it was too remote for relatives to visit children, according to the EHB. The residents were transferred to a new facility in Clondalkin, Co Dublin, managed by a former director of Trudder House.