Hospital staff under pressure to release details of child sex abuse victims

Staff at a unit treating child sex abuse victims are coming under increasing pressure from the courts and the DPP to release intimate details over and above that related to abuse concerns.

The level of detail demanded by lawyers is such that staff at St Clare’s Child Sexual Abuse Unit in Temple Street Hospital believe it could deter families with abuse concerns from coming forward.

The unit’s acting principal social worker, Maura O’Sullivan, said that children confide in them on the basis of confidentiality but that increasing requests from both the civil and criminal courts were impacting on their ability to guarantee containment of intimate information.