Ministers must 'urgently' fix disconnect between Gardaí and Tusla, says Children's Ombudman

'I think it would be great if Minister Harris or Minister O’Gorman would move forward on that as a matter of urgency,” said Ombudsman for Children, Dr Niall Muldoon. Picture: Maxwells

The Ombudsman for Children has called on the justice and children’s ministers to “urgently” tackle persistent obstacles blocking the sharing of information in child sex abuse cases between Gardaí and Tusla.

Dr Niall Muldoon said the launch in September 2019 of the child-friendly Barnahus model — which brings together all the relevant agencies under one roof — was supposed to be “confirmation” that the problems had been addressed.

But he said a new report by the European Union and the Council of Europe of the model in Ireland was “very clear” that the problem remained, with detrimental consequences for children affected.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner, the Ombudsman also said:

• Child victims of sexual abuse were being “discriminated” against in comparison to adult victims of child sex abuse, as they do not have a national therapy service;
• The State should draw up a National Strategy for Child Sex Abuse, recommended by the Garda Inspectorate in 2017 and supported by voluntary agencies such as the ISPC;

The EU-CoE Inception Report said there were “undue delays” in child victims accessing justice in Ireland, noting that staff in Baranhus West estimated that children were waiting between two and nine years for a court date.

The report cites Dr Muldoon in saying that children were subject to “multiple interviews” by different agencies during the gathering of evidence because there was no clear approach by them, and that this had the potential to be “traumatising” and created “huge delays”.

It said that the position being taken by the agencies on sharing information had “little focus on the best interests of the child” and that there was a need for a national policy “requiring and defining” interagency co-operation.

'It costs nothing'

Dr Muldoon said both he and Professor Geoffrey Shannon, the then-Government’s special rapporteur on children, examined the issue of the sharing of information between Gardaí and Tusla in 2017 and could not find any legal impediment.

"It costs nothing, but it impacts on children enormously," he said.

I think we need a political impetus to make this happen.

"I thought we crossed that Rubicon back in 2019 — that it was already sorted. I think it would be great if Minister [Simon] Harris or Minister [Roderic] O’Gorman would move forward on that as a matter of urgency”.

A spokesman for the Department of Justice said Gardaí and Tusla would be “better placed” to respond to the issues around sharing of information and co-operation.

A statement from the Department of Children said the report was the “first step” of identifying issues among agencies.

“Next steps for the project include an in-depth legal and policy review, which will be commencing soon, and a training gap analysis, which is already under way,” it said.