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A REPORT INTO claims of sexual abuse at a foster home in the south-east has revealed that the HSE failed to investigate concerns fully.
Last year RTÉ‘s This Week revealed the story of Grace – a young woman with profound intellectual disabilities who was left in a foster home in the Waterford area for almost 20 years despite a succession of sexual abuse allegations.
In 1995 on the back of these claims, the South Eastern Health Board decided not to place any further people in the home.
However, a decision to remove Grace was overturned in 1996. As a result she stayed in the home until a whistleblower’s complaint in 2009.
The scandal resulted in the HSE Director General Tony O’Brien apologising to the 47 families – including Grace’s – who were in the care of the home.
The report
The report, entitled ‘Review of Certain Matters Relating to a Disability in the South East’, details the measures taken by members of the foster care home, and then the following actions by the HSE. The identities of those involved have been protected.
In his assessment of the HSE’s reactions to the sexual abuse allegations, Conor Dignam concluded that the HSE had failed to investigate properly, and there were still aspects that had not been examined fully:
“These are all allegations of the most serious nature and it seems to me that they should have been required to have been inquired into fully and expeditiously in the interests of Grace, all of those other service users, the relationship between the HSE and the service provider and the persons against whom allegations were implicitly or expressly made.
Some of these matters have still not been inquired into.
“Some, such as the task of identifying any other persons who may have been placed with the former foster family, have now been looked into by Resilience Ireland, but the failure by the HSE to ensure that there could be no doubt but that this was part of the Devine Inquiry means that there was a delay of almost four years in doing so.”
Upon the publishing of the report, the HSE issued a statement saying they wished “again to apologise to Grace and her family for the failings identified and for the poor care received by those placed with the foster family”.
Recommendations
The report has set out eight recommendations relating specifically to the HSE, which have now been referred to the HSE for a response within two weeks on how they are being or will be addressed.
Among these, the report puts a clear emphasis on the need for independent reviews:
Save in exceptional circumstances, reviews or inquiries in relation to acts or omissions of the HSE in a particular area or region, should not be conducted by a team involving any individual who has had a senior management role in the relevant HSE area or region.
The full 300-page report can be read here.
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Awful sad. Thoughts with the families.
A good few Irish lads out in Dubai working for their engineering and maintenance department. Thinking of Ye lads. For all the armchair crash investigators, no pilot takes off with the thought that his actions will kill all on board. I’ll keep my opinions until after we have an crash investigation report. RIP.
You are forgetting the actions of Andreas Lubitz then.
True
@tom burke, my connection with the ‘manx2′ crash was budget airline & it says the plane was ‘circling’ for 2hrs when other planes had diverted but obviously this crew were under pressure to land at that airport as were the crew of ‘manx2′ flight
Sounds like a similar chain of events that caused the ‘manx2′ flight to crash in cork a few years ago,
Manx crashed in poor visibility, not stormy conditions. Indeed when it is foggy it is rarely windy.
Not that similar.
Ahh tom the aviation expert is back ..
Ah Chris
I’m merely stating facts.
In fact I’m one of the few who is not speculating.
Sorry for pointing out the obvious Tom, but in stating that this crash is not that similar to the manx crash, you’re speculating on the precise cause(s) of this crash.
Avina
You are making this painful.
I never speculated anything about the cause of the crash. All I’m doing is pointing out the facts that the weather in this incident and the weather in the Cork incident were very different.
I’m not speculating. I’m dealing with facts. There is a big difference.
Lubitz was a co-pilot. I am aware of this incident and others where members of the flight crew flew the aircraft into terrain. Hope that made your day pointing that out
Whatever pal.
There’s a video out there purporting to be of this plane crash. Doesn’t look like any accidental crash in bad weather I’ve ever seen. Plane comes down hard and fast on an almost 90 degree angle.
Sounds like poor judgement alright. Pressure to land instead of divert. If bad weather then should have diverted to airport with ILS. The mistake was the 2 hours circling…ate up the divert allowance.
We simply don’t know.
It’s all speculation at this stage.
But we do know its rarely foggy and windy at the same time …lol….but that is correct
It is correct Chris. Glad you came around.
There is footage of it from cctv and it looks like it nose dived into the ground? It looks nothing like a plane missing the runway. Rip to all souls lost.
Shocking. Know a few pilots down there.
6h30m flying a 738 with one confirmed and a possible second go around? Fuel?
Could of course be off the mark but if you listen to communication with ATC there’s no mention of fuel. All conversations relate to weather. That said bigger and better airlines cut it fine with fuel so hardly out of the question. It’s saying the wing hit the ground which could mean wind but it’s coming in very steep and very fast. So I could be pilot error. I’d say it’s best to leave it to the experts.
Magoo he meant anyone in their right mind you clown
The speculation police are out in force today.
Ya watch one series of air crash investigator and people become experts!!!
@quiggers im not trying to be an aviation expert nor an air crash investigation expert but like yourself i do have friends in that field & i do read all these reports from accidents so i do have to a ‘certain extent’ & i use that very carefully understand the reasons behind these incidents
How do you know the captain made any “fatal decision” ?
@ Helena…
I wish the journal got their facts right! Poor journalism, that’s what it’s called. Not ALL passengers were Russian: 44 were Russian, 2 Indians, 8 Ukranians & 1 Uzbek. The crew consisted of a captain from Cyprus (who made the fatal decision to land instead of diverting, did he think he was invisible and will be able to land when many other planes decided to divert?!), co-pilot from Spain, air hostess from Colombia and the rest of the crew from the Seychelles. More accurate info is here: http://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/world/how-is-the-weather-sir-audio-of-final-cockpit-conversation-of-doomed-flydubai-738-jet-before-crash-in-poor-visibility/ar-BBqGnJX?li=AAaxjhv
Invisible?
I have no idea what that word means in this context.
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