State abandoned me, says house of horrors survivor

A SURVIVOR of the house of horrors in which tragic schoolgirl Kelly Fitzgerald was abused says she has been abandoned by the State since her sister died.

Geraldine Fitzgerald, who endured much of the same abuse that made Kelly’s life a living hell, says she has been left ill, on welfare and in debt and cannot get answers as to why no prosecution was ever taken against anyone for the suffering inflicted on her.

The girls’ parents, Des and Sue Fitzgerald, were both sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to the neglect of Kelly who died in 1993 at the age of 15. While an inquest found she died of septicaemia and her death was therefore due to natural causes, she was also severely malnourished and showed many signs of abuse.

The case, described at the time by then Justice Minister Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, as “the most horrific abuse case in the history of the State”, caused outcry and helped prompt an overhaul of antiquated child protection laws which prevented social services acting against parents’ wishes.

Geraldine, now 27, was 12 when Kelly died and only ever publicly identified previously as “Girl Three”.

She and four other siblings were taken into care by the then Western Health Board when an investigation began into their sister’s death, but in an interview with the Sunday Tribune newspaper yesterday, she said she had been ignored since.

“I’m 27 years old and I feel my life is over, not beginning,” she said. “I am literally tired from the amount of times over the years that I’ve appealed to people to help me. I explain to them who I am and what I’m going through and it still doesn’t make a difference. The way I see life: you get born, you get f***ed, and then you die.”

One of the unusual features of the case was that while healthcare professionals and social services found Geraldine and Kelly to be suffering abuse and neglect, the other siblings were generally healthy and happy.

Geraldine was not allowed give evidence to the court during her parents’ trial to explain the strange circumstances in which they lived because the law at the time required parental consent and they would not give it.

She told the Sunday Tribune she wanted to know why records chronicling her own abuse were not acted upon, why she was taken out of care and made spend Christmas with her parents while they were under investigation, and why a formal complaint she made to the gardaí last year about her parents has yielded no result.

“They didn’t rescue me. It was only when Kelly died that I was taken out of there. Even when I was in care, nothing was done without the consent of my parents. When the social workers wanted me to go to court to give evidence about what was done to Kelly, my father refused to give his permission.”

Geraldine, who still lives in the west of Ireland, has no contact with her parents who returned to live in Mayo after prison. She did not complete her education, is under medical care for a number of physical and psychological problems and cannot work.

Children’s Minister Brian Lenihan said he would be willing to re-examine the case in light of Geraldine’s plea for help. Attempts to get a response from the Health Service Executive West which replaced the Western Health Board, were unsuccessful yesterday.