€6.3m settlement but ‘Grace’ failings require HSE answers
Speaking to the Irish Examiner after the landmark judgement, the whistleblower said while the ruling was “a good day for Grace”, the HSE has yet to provide any “answers or accountability” for who is responsible for the 20-year scandal.
In a settlement yesterday after detailed deliberations, High Court president Peter Kelly sanctioned a HSE offer worth €6.3m in response to what happened to Grace, a woman with severe physical and intellectual disabilities who was abused for two decades at a State-funded foster home.
The settlement includes €4.6m in promised personal care for the rest of Grace’s life; €600,000 in damages, €150,000 above usual limits due to the scale of abuse suffered; and €600,000 to cover the HSE’s failure to properly support her since the scandal emerged in 2009.
In addition, the settlement also involves €87,000 in disability allowance payments to cover money Grace’s foster family abusers illegitimately kept from her; €275,000 in future disability allowance payments; and €175,000 for ongoing medical-related transport.
Speaking during yesterday’s High Court hearing, Justice Kelly said it was disturbing that this abuse scandal occurred in the 21st century and involved “abdication” of responsibility by health officials.
He said it remains a “mystery” why the decision to remove her in 1996 was not acted on and was later reversed by a three-person health board committee after the foster family’s father contacted then health minister Michael Noonan.
If a State commission of investigation he hopes “will get to the bottom of this” had not already been set up, Justice Kelly added he would have rejected the settlement and instead insisted on answers by trial.
Speaking to the Irish Examiner last night, the whistleblower at the centre of the case repeated this view, saying that while the money is welcome and a source of huge relief for Grace and her carers, it cannot undo the damage caused.
“As Peter Kelly outlined today, money is the only mechanism available within the law to compensate, but no money can undo what the HSE did or, indeed, failed to do,” the whistleblower said.
“It is a good day for Grace, but there have been no answers and still no accountability for this gross negligence.”
Yesterday’s High Court hearing was told that despite recommendations more than a decade ago that Grace be made a ward of court, this failed to be acted on due to fears a court would ask questions about her care.
It also heard that when Grace was removed in 2009 from her foster family abusers, she was in a “wretched” state, frail, dirty, and unkempt, with health problems due to a poor diet and psychosis.
Her only possession was a child’s toy which she held onto “for dear life”.
The HSE yesterday again apologised unreservedly for “the failings in your [Grace’s] care”.
However, given the HSE’s track record in the case — Justice Kelly insisted on a sworn HSE court guarantee it will abide by the terms of the settlement and begin payments within four weeks.
While the settlement has now been reached, Justice Kelly stressed the State commission of investigation into the scandal must uncover who was responsible.
Speaking on RTE’s Six One News last night Fergus Finlay, chief executive of children’s charity Barnardos, welcomed the settlement but said: “The State failed her [Grace] again and again, and again.
“I hope today’s settlement is certainly not the last settlement, because other people were abused.”
