HSE admits full responsibility for teens’ deaths

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) has admitted full responsibility for the tragic deaths of two young people while in the care of the state.

The health authority yesterday published reports into the deaths of 17-year-old David Foley and a mother-of-two Tracey Fay, 18 who both died from drug overdoses.

The HSE also confirmed it has commenced a review to determine whether disciplinary action against staff is appropriate.

HSE assistant national director of children and families Phil Garland said the two reports clearly identified significant deficits in the care provided to the two young people.

“These two reports demonstrate a significant failure of this organisation to provide those services,” he said.

Mr Garland said that while mechanisms were now in place to protect vulnerable children in the care of the HSE, he could not be sure that they would have prevented the tragic deaths of the two children.

“I don’t know the answer to that question but we are committed to trying to minimise the situations where young people place themselves in higher and higher risks. We can’t get it right always but we can do the best we can to minimise those risks,” he said.

The tragic circumstances of Tracey’s life that ended in a sordid basement in Dublin was revealed last month by Fine Gael’s Alan Shatter.

The report on Tracey’s care highlights missed opportunities while the report on David’s says his case exposed tragic system failures.

Following legal advice and consultation with the next of kin, the HSE published reports, not case reviews, of care provided to the two teenagers.

Both reports conclude that the HSE failed to adequately address the teenagers’ care, protection and accommodation needs.

Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Barry Andrews said the stories of the two children were similar. “Despite the provision of a range of services, the care planning system failed and two children died,” he said.

Children’s charity Barnardos said the reports highlighted the severe lack of transparency and accountability that have plagued child protection services throughout Ireland’s history.

Mr Shatter said the reports utterly failed to meet acceptable standards of accountability and transparency with regard to the grotesque failures of a dysfunctional, mismanaged and un-coordinated child care and protection service.

“Under the disingenuous guise of a concern to provide protection for the ‘dignity’ of the deceased young people, substantially greater than the protection afforded to them during their lifetime, and to also protect the identity of each of them, which is already widely known, two sanitised and dehumanised reports have been published,” he said.