Legislation ‘absolutely failed’ children killed by their mother

Darragh, Carla, and Conor McGinley. Their mother, Deirdre Morley, was found not guilty by reason of insanity of killing them at their home in Newcastle, Co Dublin, on January 24, 2020. Picture: Andrew McGinley/Conor's Clips

Legislation “absolutely failed” three children killed by their mother, and the State owes it to their memory to reform the law, the Seanad has been told.

Independent senator Aubrey McCarthy said that “ambiguity” across a variety of acts had “catastrophic” consequences for Conor, Darragh, and Carla McGinley. 

Their mother, Deirdre Morley, was found not guilty by reason of insanity of killing them at their home in Newcastle, Co Dublin, on January 24, 2020.

An autopsy later found the children died by suffocation.

Their father, Andrew McGinley, believes they could still be alive today if he had been informed about basic safeguarding issues related to the mental health of his wife, who was being cared for by HSE community mental health services.

Ms Morley, who had been due to be transferred to a secure residential mental health unit around the time she killed her children, was — Mr McGinley later found out — suicidal and had said she did not want to be around her own children.

Andrew McGinley and Una Butler's campaign  

Mr McGinley and Cork woman Una Butler are campaigning for it to be mandatory for people to be involved in the mental health treatment of their partners in relationships where there are children. 

Ms Butler has been campaigning for this since her husband John took his own life after he murdered their children Zoe, 6, and Ella, 2, on November 16, 2010, in Ballycotton, Co Cork.

Mr McCarthy said: “When clinical decisions about a patient have implications for the patient’s children or their co-parents’, then the co-parents must have the right to be fully informed.

No clinician should have the authority automatically to make decisions in isolation where the outcomes may directly impact the safety, the welfare, and the rights of children and the other parent. 

"Yet this is precisely what happened in the McGinley case.”

He said two acts need reforming: The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 and the Children First Act 2015, which placed key elements of the Children First: National Guidance framework on a statutory footing. 

Minister of state Jennifer Murnane O’Connor said Sharing the Vision, the national mental health policy, “underpins the support for family involvement”. 

She said the support of family and loved ones is “explicitly mentioned” and referenced throughout the policy.

A spokesperson for Micheál Martin said the Taoiseach has raised Mr McGinley’s concerns about the scope of the forthcoming inquests into his children’s deaths with the HSE.