Child death details may be published

DETAILS of the deaths of children known to social services in the past decade are being prepared for possible publication this week and contain 20 deaths in Cork and Kerry alone.

It emerged yesterday details of 50 deaths have already been compiled by the HSE, which is due to publish the list on Friday.

Last Friday it published a list of children who had died while in care in the past decade, with those 37 deaths including five suicides and five drug overdoses.

However, the next list, which will include people over 18 years who were receiving aftercare, and others who may not have been in the care system but who were known to care services, is likely to run to hundreds of children and young adults.

Yesterday Bernard Gloster, appointed by the HSE to oversee the compiling of the figures, said he did not want to speculate as to the possible tally, but yesterday’s Sunday Business Post reported the details of 50 child deaths have already been prepared and that 20 of those were in counties Cork and Kerry.

The figures are to be provided to the Government-appointed independent review group of Norah Gibbons and Geoffrey Shannon on Friday.

Last week’s information was also due to be presented to the group, although it is unclear if the HSE made direct contact regarding the information.

The HSE figures released last Friday have already been criticised, with Fine Gael questioning their accuracy, although HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm claimed they were “absolutely reliable”.

Yesterday Focus Ireland said the Government needed to follow a twin-track approach to reform of the care services, with an allocated social worker for every child in the system and a legal right to aftercare for all young people leaving state care at 18.

Focus Ireland’s director of advocacy Mike Allen said: “There needs to be urgent action to better protect children in care by ensuring every one of them has an allocated social worker. It is unacceptable that HSE figures show that 20% of young people in care still do not have a social worker

“There also needs to be a legal right to aftercare so vulnerable young people leaving care at 18 are not left to fend for themselves but get the support they need to protect them and help them move on to independent adult life.”

Mr Gloster said he could not give “any speculative indication” as to the number that is due to be published.

He said the figures released last Friday was done after “absolute clarity” had been established as to the criteria for inclusion.

He said the deaths of those from natural causes had been viewed in the HSE as “very sad situations rather than adverse events” with accountability issues attached to them.

Speaking on RTÉ yesterday, child law solicitor Catherine Ghent said she would be “very surprised” if only five children in care had died by suicide in the past decade.