Mick Clifford: Has anything really changed at Tusla?

Former Garda Sergeant Maurice McCabe. Picture: Barry Cronin/www.barrycronin.com

The striking of an individual from a professional register is a tough blow for anybody to suffer. 

Often the recipient has been liable for serious crimes such as theft or fraud or even found guilty of perpetrating crimes of violence of one sort or another. 

Gerard Lowry, who was struck from the social workers professional register this week, was not involved in any such crime. 

His transgression was that he was responsible for what has been described as a “catastrophic error” in his professional capacity.

That error resulted in the outrageous and erroneous labelling of garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe as a child abuser. 

The manner in which it was handled, once discovered, then led to the requirement to set up a public tribunal. 

High cost

This was at a time when tribunals had largely been discontinued because of the high cost of so many over the last thirty years. 

But the issues around the McCabe case that had come into the public domain – principally but not exclusively through the Irish Examiner – had left the public drained of confidence.

The government of the day decided the case had to be aired to dispel growing suspicions that a cover-up was afoot. 

That tribunal completed its work in 2018, setting out several ways in which McCabe had been wronged by various elements of the state apparatus. 

Monday’s High Court confirmation of Lowry’s professional fate is the latest, and most likely the last, serious outcome from the case.

We know some of the details that led to Lowry being deemed unfit to practice as a social worker. 

We don’t know the full picture because last December at the hearing into his case a decision was taken by the social workers regulatory body, CORU, to hold the hearing behind closed doors. 

On foot of an application

This was on foot of an application from another social worker who was also before the fitness to practice inquiry. 

This social worker had produced medical evidence which, the hearing accepted, merited her protection from exposure to a public hearing. 

Practicalities then necessitated that Lowry’s hearing, being held at the same time, should also be behind closed doors.

The facts have been well aired by now. 

A teenager, known as Ms D, made an allegation against Sergeant McCabe in 2006. 

McCabe, who had a fractious relationship with Ms D’s father, also a garda, completely denied the allegation. 

The detail of the allegation would subsequently be described as “horseplay”, but at the time, mainly due to McCabe’s garda standing, a garda investigation was conducted. 

It recommended there was no case for prosecution and the DPP agreed.

Seven years later, when McCabe became a public figure through revelations about garda incompetence and corruption, Ms D again revealed the allegation, this time to a counsellor.

The counsellor, as she was obliged, informed Tusla in the Cavan Monaghan district, where Gerard Lowry was the area manager.

What followed was a series of bizarre and barely believable coincidences in which the allegation against McCabe was mixed up with an entirely separate case where a man was accused of raping a child.

“This matter was an unbelievable concidence,” Judge Peter Charleton, chair of the Disclosures Tribunal, would rule. 

“Yet, as it emerges, despite its bizarre nature, this was a genuine mistake.”

The mistake festered even after it was pointed out that something had gone terribly wrong. 

Erroneous details

The erroneous details were passed onto the gardai, elements of which were already hostile to McCabe over his disclosures of malpractice.

Then, despite the discovery of the error, a letter was sent to McCabe in January 2016 effectively accusing him of being a danger to his own children. 

Only then was he alerted to what had been going on and his solicitor set about contacting Tusla to explain itself.

At this point, the situation could have been retrieved, and the trauma suffered by McCabe and his family alleviated. 

If Lowry had immediately endeavoured to discover what had occurred and if he explained it in full to McCabe’s solicitor, the worst of what was unfolding could have been avoided.

Instead, the path taken was to circle wagons rather than come out with hands up.

“From 2016, no one within Tulsa considered owning up to the serious mistakes that had been made,” Judge Charleton wrote.

“The solicitors’ letter of complaint on Mr McCabe’s behalf, sent in response to the letter from Tusla, received in January 2016, was an invitation to give a proper explanation of what had happened. 

"Had that happened, had Tusla senior management sat down and read the file and then forthrightly replied, setting out fully the mistakes that they had made, this tribunal of inquiry would most probably have been avoided.”

Tusla did not reply to McCabe’s solicitor for fully six months on a matter of extreme urgency and pain for a wronged citizen. 

Vague and defensive

When a response finally did come it was vague and defensive. 

It wasn’t until February 2017 that full culpability began to dawn. 

Within days of the background being reported in the Irish Examiner that month, the tribunal was set up.

In his report, Judge Charleton didn’t hold back on the degree of culpability.

“A public body, paid for by the taxpayer, has a fundamental duty of self-scrutiny in pursuit of the highest standards. The administration of Tusla was sorely lacking in application and in dedication to duty,” he reported.

Lowry has paid a price with his professional licence. 

Another social worker, who was mentioned in the High Court hearing on Monday, has been suspended. 

She cannot be named for “legal and constitutional” reasons, Judge Micheal P Higgins ruled. 

Both Lowry and this other social worker have retired from Tusla.

What we don’t know is what if anything has changed in the child and family agency. 

Neither do we know if managers and social workers continue to be under what some describe as the kind of intolerable pressure that may well have contributed to aspects of the catastrophic error in this case. 

As is often the case, we are being told that the past and its awkward unanswered questions are from a different country and we should trust that things are much improved today.