Protecting vulnerable adults under the law

In the wake of the Grace and Áras Attracta abuse scandals, Claire O’Sullivan looks at the gap in law protecting vulnerable adults and what’s being done to close it.

Vulnerable adults at risk of all kinds of abuse have little or no legal safeguards.

And the case that most shockingly illustrated this was the longstanding physical abuse of a mute intellectually disabled woman, known as Grace, who spent her childhood and adult life in the care of a foster family in the South East.