Cork Tragedy

Overheal

For those of you who may not have heard, and for those of you who wish to discuss.

- Overheal.

Ireland stunned by tragic deaths of young family


By Pauline Bugler Apr 28, 2007, 18:27 GMT

Cork, Ireland - Ireland's rare glorious sunshine was dulled this week by the tragic, apparently extended suicide of a young family which has plunged the country into a soul-searching debate about whether the state is taking suicide prevention seriously.

Adrian Dunne, 29, was found hanging in the hallway of his house, his 26-year-old wife Ciara and their daughters Shania, 3 and Leanne, 5, were found dead in their living-room in the south-eastern village of Monageer, county Wexford, about 100 kilometres from Dublin, last Monday, when authorities forcibly entered the house.

The results of a preliminary post mortem indicated that the mother had been strangled or choked and the girls suffocated.

In what is becoming an increasingly bizarre and perhaps avoidable tragedy, the Irish public were even more shocked to learn that in the case of the Dunnes, authorities had been tipped off about a possible family crisis.

In the aftermath of this week's grisly discovery, doubt still hung over whether enough had been done to avert their deaths.

Adrian and Ciaras' families were still trying to grasp what had prompted the young family to visit an undertaker in New Ross last Friday and enquire about funerals, coffins and grave plots for all four after which Adrian finalized his will.

Their daughters were to be buried in white coffins and clad in Liverpool soccer jerseys and jeans bearing the logo of Dora the Explorer, a popular children's cartoon character.
Alarmed by the instructions, undertaker Frances Cooney contacted the Irish police or gardai who advised her to contact Father Richard Redmond, who knew the family. This set in motion an ineffectual chain of attempts to reach the Dunnes.

A routine check conducted before the family's visit to the undertaker by a Health Services Executive (HSE) nurse had not given any cause for concern.

Redmond visited the family, who did not appear distressed, but left unconvinced that all was well and on Saturday asked the parish priest, Father Bill Cosgrave, to visit them again. He arrived at the house to find closed blinds.

Only at this point, did gardai contact HSE officials in Wexford, who reminded them that they as police had the power to remove the children under section 12 of the Childcare Act if they feared for their safety. Adrian's brother, Sebastian, later spoke to him on the telephone at around 6.30 pm and heard the other family members in the background.

The following Monday, Father Cosgrove went to the family's house again to find no answer. In their first attempt to make direct contact with the family, gardai and HSE officials agreed to visit the Dunnes at around 2 pm.

Their deaths came as frustrated social workers gathered in Dublin, the capital of what now ranks as one of Europe's wealthiest countries, last weekend to demand adequately resourced, national, comprehensive out-of-hours support services for families in crisis.

Irish police only take the step of entering a house without a warrant and removing children based on advice and information available to social workers or health authorities.

In a twist of fate, Adrian and his family's wishes for their burials and set out by the couple in the presence of their daughters, and since splashed across the front page of the Irish Examiner, will go unfulfilled.

Leanne will not be placed in a coffin beside her father, Adrian, and Shania shall not lie next to her mother in a coffin as the parents had requested.

Instead, two oak coffins bearing Adrian and Ciara headed the cortege as it departed Wexford hospital and was followed by a hearse bearing two small white coffins.

A bitter row between the two families over the burial places was averted and Ciara and her daughters were buried in county Donegal, north-west Ireland, where she was originally from, while Adrian was to be buried in county Wexford.

The Irish government has announced an independent probe into the deaths which will likely focus on whether the HSE and the gardai did everything in their power to avert the tragedy.

A charity group called the Samaritans, which provides around-the- clock call-in emotional support, said in a 2006 report published on the internet that Ireland witnessed a 13-per-cent increase in suicide between 1995 and 2004.

Social welfare advocates in Ireland say that in view of such data, the need for a comprehensive system to deal with emergencies and potential suicides would seem imperative.

The tragedy of the Dunne family rekindled memories of a case which shook Ireland two years ago, when another young mother in Wexford, Sharon Grace, drowned herself along with her two young daugthers in 2005 after an unsuccessful bid to gain help at a local hospital - where she was turned because the social worker was already off-duty.

BrandonBlock

Eh??????? Cork?

Chucky the tree

doubt still hung over whether enough had been done to avert their deaths.

Brilliant choice.



I also love the way the yocals still get in touch with the local priest when there is a problem.

randylonghorn

Em ... isn't there an ongoing AH thread discussing that here?

Zebra3

Cork?

**** me, I thought it was only a pisstake about Carlow being out of touch with the rest of the world.... :rolleyes:

nesf

There is already a thread for this.


Locked.