Figures for sexual abuse among older people are rising but pandemic could mask true extent

A senior social worker has said that not only do the Irish tolerate abuse in 'all walks of life', but we also 'make too many excuses for abuse'.

Reports of sexual abuse of older people are on the rise but the pandemic could mask the true extent of the problem, one of the HSE’s most senior social workers has warned.

Celine O’Connor said the recent HSE hack has delayed the release of the HSE National Safeguarding Office 2020 annual report, which will reveal the latest details on the extent of the problem.

The HSE's principal adult safeguarding social worker for Dublin South, Kildare, and West Wicklow, said: “Our sexual abuse figures for older people are rising all the time. 

I can't say what the figures will be for 2020 but they are likely to be down. I doubt that is because there is less abuse going on.

"Instead I believe this will be because a number of service providers have admitted they have delayed reporting abuse."

She added that she fears the under-reporting will only serve to mask the true extent of the problem.

Ms O'Connor said there are not enough professionals working for the health service to stop the abuse from happening.

Speaking at the Behind Closed doors: Abuse In Care Settings UCD webinar to mark yesterday’s World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, she also revealed “a lot of” care staff are reluctant to report things.

Ms O'Connor says this is because of a fear “they're going to get their colleagues in trouble, they fear losing their own job, they fear the impact it is going to cause”.

She told attendees at event, co-hosted by the UCD School of Social Work, the Irish Association of Social Workers, and the British Association of Social Workers Northern Ireland, that care staff also “don't believe that older people can be sexually abused”.

She asked: “If you don't believe that, why would you report it?”

Ms O’Connor also said: “When they have tried to raise concerns, social workers — according to what they have told the Irish Association of Social Workers — have been spoken to about their loyalty to the organisations they work for.

“They have been challenged that they are going to make [agencies funded by the HSE] liable to being sued.”

The senior social worker also said she feels more needs to be done to regulate her and her colleagues.

“There's been no review of us,” she said. 

“I really think there should be more regulation of us, that somebody should be looking at how we are providing the service. Are we providing it equally across all of our services?”

Ms O’Connor also said that not only do the Irish tolerate abuse in “all walks of life”, but we also “make too many excuses for abuse”.

She referenced the fact that the only legislation underpinning the work she and her colleagues do is 150 years old, the Lunacy Regulation (Ireland) Act 1871.

It was an act to amend the law relating to — among other things — what the act itself describes as the "management of the estates of lunatics" and the "protection of the property of lunatics”.