Five Adults Convicted of Litany of Child Abuse and Neglect

Why can’t the convicted not be named? I don’t think there is usually a ban on reporting names?

@JupiterKid wrote:

I think this is very unfair, especially without knowing the full details. No social worker encounters this level of neglect and thinks, "Meh, it'll be grand".

The fact is that legally we give supremacy to the family unit and it is incredibly difficult and protracted to make a substantial case to justify breaking it. There is very limited power to just lift a child unless it's clear they're in an immediate. Dishevelled, a little underweight, depressed; all reasons for serious concern, but our archaic laws see no immediate threat, so it's not good enough.

You also have no end of interferers. As soon as it becomes obvious that the state might be getting involved, there's a dark network of religious nutjobs who are immediately on the case and will defend the parents right to keep their children no matter what.

The fact is that social workers need more statutory powers. The longer-term good needs to be given more priority and the short-term good less. There was a lot of wailing about the child a couple of years back who was taken from her parents while Gardai ascertained that she hadn't been abducted. While the action itself was an unmitigated **** up, the impact itself was pretty small. A child had a night or two being well cared for, before going back. Not exactly life-long scars coming out of that.

That kind of action should be possible; with appropriate balances of course; where a Tusla worker after a concerning visit, presents a preliminary report to a judge that same day, who can then authorise taking the children away to spend 48 hours assessing their condition.

Probably not permanent residents of that town if you catch my drift...

Mod - don't post in this thread again

Tusla are beyond useless and seem to only go after easy targets.

But how fcuking brave were those kids to come forward and not only explain what was happening to them, but face down their abusers in a court of law. Especially since the abusers were the ones meant to protect you in life.

Not without a court order, gardai are the only ones with the power to remove a child from their home.

I think in this particular case it’s very fair to say that the social workers, involved in the case for years, DID encounter this level of neglect and think “meh, it’ll be grand”. That’s precisely why the level of neglect and abuse of the children involved carried on for as long as it did.

It’s untrue to say that we give legal supremacy to the family unit when we don’t, and historically speaking we have never done that as the State has always been regarded in law as the guardian of the common good in Irish society. We had a referendum called the Children’s Referendum in 2012 which recognised the State as having the authority to supplant the place of the parents in circumstances where children were deemed to be at risk (notwithstanding the existence of the Children’s Act of 2001, specifically S. 246 regarding Cruelty to Children).

The fact is not that social workers need more powers, the fact is that social workers are already obligated to report their concerns to Gardaí, and many social workers do report their concerns to Gardaí, but some social workers, don’t, and they can become involved with the family for years without ever reporting their concerns or making Gardaí aware of the situation. You’re using an example of one case among hundreds, which are ongoing on a daily basis. The case here, and the case you’re referring to, are extremes of a culmination of factors, all or none of which can be involved, as each individual case is has it’s own circumstances.

There’s also no “dark network of religious nut jobs”. It’s precisely because of our history with said dark network of religious nut jobs who had a propensity to separate children from their parents that we learned from the mistakes of the past - separating children from their parents has a detrimental effect on children’s welfare and outcomes in later life. It’s why that’s just not the default policy any more, hasn’t been since 2015 when Tusla adopted the “Signs of Safety” model to manage risk rather than going straight for the nuclear option of removing children from the family home and their parents care. Unfortunately there’s no way to plug the gap between policy, practice, and individuals judgement, which means there are still children who are suffering neglect and social workers who imagine that “it’ll be grand” because they’re “managing the risks” (or at least those risks that they’re aware of anyway!).

The kind of action you’re talking about is exactly the kind of short-term action you’re critical of, which would mean sacrificing achieving the long-term aim of catering for the best interests of the child or children’s future and their relationship with their family. The circumstances of this case should never have gotten to the extreme that they did, and it’s clear that early intervention was ineffective as the case workers had been involved with the families for years. It wasn’t simply the case that they didn’t notice that the children were being neglected, and so it’s not unfair to say that the social workers involved didn’t do their jobs properly, nor is it unfair to say that that social workers didn’t need more powers to protect children, the procedures already exist, up to and including having the children removed from the family home a hell of a lot sooner than allowing the neglect which they observed to go on for years.

References:

Details of the level of neglect which social workers were aware of:

was it some sort of a paedophile ring? I wonder if the uncle and his partner made the two parents with intellectual disabilities have children so they could be abused?

Earlier articles mentioned over 20 possible child victims and a 'sports referee' arrested (later released I think).

Very strange altogether

Absolutely. Its the worse kind of betrayal and perversion of what we would assume to be the natural disposition to protect and care for your family.