HSE fails to fill child abuse investigator posts

SPECIAL investigators to determine whether children have been victims of sexual abuse have not been appointed by the HSE.

Although gardaí have 60 highly trained investigators in place, the HSE confirmed 10 special posts in the child and welfare protection services are vacant.

Leading child law specialist Catherine Ghent said 10 was not enough anyway, and that gardaí were “miles ahead” of the HSE in the area.

Ms Ghent said children were being failed by not having an integrated system linking the HSE and gardaí as in other countries.

She said parents also had to give consent for their child’s file to be passed on to gardaí – and in some cases social workers had not sent files on to gardaí.

She said there were “serious and fundamental questions” to be asked from schools, public health nurses, social workers and gardaí about not picking up on cases of child abuse and doing something about it.

She said she also had “serious concerns” in relation to the practice where children had to be interviewed twice in relation to abuse.

“We don’t yet have the joint interviewing in our system. If a child discloses abuse they are sent to St Louise’s verification unit in Temple Street. If they determine that it is abuse, they go back to HSE and say ‘yes’ this happened. If that is then referred to the guards, the child has to be interviewed again and then you are into slipping timescales and more distress for the child.”

“We don’t protect children, and when they are abused we do not intervene – they don’t get visited, or if they do social workers have so little time they can’t pick up on the abuse.”

Ms Ghent said there was a view that it was not right to put a child through the trauma of a court case. But, she said that was not a reason not to prosecute.

“That is a reason to make the system better.

“It should be fairly routine to medically examine a child, but we just don’t do it. We do not have trained lawyers or judges, the guards are way ahead in terms of specialist interviewers. Judiciary and lawyers all need training, even if you are experienced you still need training.

Ms Ghent said she did not accept that things could not be done more effectively.

“Judges need to be more aware of the issues and that you to deal with it differently, you cannot have a child on stand for a couple of hours with no break – it would not happen in UK and Scotland.”

The HSE said the interview process for the 10 posts was under way.