Department, Tusla, and HSE see sobering image of abuse supports

Then children’s minister Katherine Zappone, centre, then justice minister Charlie Flanagan, and then Childrens Hospital Group CEO Eilis Hardiman officially launched the Barnahus Onehouse Galway pilot project in 2019.

Given the State’s shameful history in tackling child sexual abuse, €1.2m doesn’t seem like a lot of money.

When you consider the scale of the current need, it seems hard to believe officials have to request this level of funding a second time.

It’s part of a painstakingly slow progress, by successive Governments, in implementing recommendations for a basic national service for children trying to live with — and recover from — the most appalling of traumas.

Such was the sobering picture painted at an Oireachtas committee this week.

It jarred with the otherwise largely positive impression of a new service — called the Barnahus model — which brings together all the services a child victim of sexual abuse, and their parents, need under one roof.

When a child under the age of 14 goes to this service in Galway, they will get — or are promised — forensic and medical services, child protection, therapeutic care, and police services.

While described as a new service, Barnahus West was set up in September 2019, although it wasn’t until November 2020 that it was in a position to start taking referrals.

The Oireachtas Committee on Children held a detailed, and packed, session on Barnahus on Tuesday

Present were assembled senior officials from the Department of Children and Tusla, as well as the HSE and Children’s Health Ireland, along with senior Garda officers.

The principal officer in the Department of Children, Des Delaney, gave the background and mentioned the landmark reports on child abuse — the Ferns report 2005 and the Ryan report of 2011. Seven years later, Hiqa was tasked with examining the issue — followed by an expert group and the pilot in 2019.

There was no mention by Mr Delaney, or any of the other contributors, that the Garda Inspectorate published a report in 2012, in which it recommended the establishment of two pilot child advocacy centres in Dublin involving the gardaí, HSE, and St Louise’s and St Clare’s units (specialist HSE therapeutic services).

In 2017, the inspectorate published a follow-up review which found that very little progress had been made in setting up the centres.

Mr Delaney told the committee that Tusla was looking for €1.2m to create 16 additional posts to make Barnahus West fully operational and not just a pilot.

It noted the Government had identified a similar model — based on the Rowan Centre in the North — but pointed out that it was still at discussion stage. It said the official plan was to have three co-located hubs, one covering Dublin, a second covering the southern region, and a third covering the northern and western region, as well as satellite locations providing therapeutic support.

It also urged a “significant increase” in the number of trained social workers to join specialist Garda interviewers, so that the recommended joint-interviewing of child victims of sexual abuse can become the norm.

Almost eight years on, the children’s committee was hearing just how slow the progress has been — through no fault of the staff across the agencies, as noted by many members

Barnahus West is still looking for stable funding and increased funding to be properly functioning.

The Department of Children, joined by Tusla and HSE/Children’s Health Ireland, is also trying to get funding to establish Barnahus South.

Mr Delaney told the committee that Tusla was looking for €1.2m to create 16 additional posts to make Barnahus West fully operational — and not just a pilot — and set up Barnahus South, pointing out that this funding is “critical”.

He said there is a “significant waiting list” for therapy as it stands.

Helen Shortt, of the HSE, said that while the Barnahus South model started earlier this month in Cork, it is working on a “virtual basis” with a site at St Mary’s Health Campus earmarked for the construction of the physical building — once funding is approved.

Mr Delaney said a memo for the Tusla funding would go soon to the Government. He pointed out that a similar memo was sent the previous September, prior to Budget 2024, but that it “didn’t proceed any further”.

Fine Gael committee member Simon Coveney said he doesn’t think the first concern of the Government should be the budget, pointing out that €1.2m is very small in terms of the overall health and children’s budgets.

Green Party TD Patrick Costello, a former social worker, praised the model, but said there simply aren’t enough centres.

He said Norway, with a similar population has 11 centres and that Sweden has 34 centres. He said Cyprus, with a population of 1.2m, has three centres.

Tusla chief executive Kate Duggan said the agency received more than 91,000 referrals last year and that 5,467 (6%) related to child sexual abuse.

She said that since Barnahus West began taking referrals in 2020, some 446 children and their families have been cared for.

Independent senator Tom Clonan said this suggests that a “very tiny number” of victims of child sexual abuse are in the Barnahus system.

“I’m shocked at the numbers, and that’s not a criticism,” he said. Children are also treated by St Louise’s and St Claire’s, as well as by the charity Cari.

Tusla’s chief social worker Gerard Brophy told members that it is taking “seven to eight years” to get a case before the courts. He said there is a “significant problem” with data sharing between Tusla and gardaí, and disclosure of information at court level.

He added that only around 2% of all child sex abuse cases end in a prosecution.