Fergus Finlay: The Grace case commission is over — but justice never even began for Fran
Fran is a survivor of abuse. Her family, and not the State, is helping her to rebuild her life. File photo
The Farrelly Commission of Investigation into the Grace case was supposed to have two phases. The first was to enquire into what happened to Grace in the house of a so-called foster carer. The second was to find out what happened to the other children. The government has decided not to proceed with the second phase at all, and instead to wind the whole thing up.
On balance I think that’s the right decision. The idea of sending another 10 lawyers to spend another 10 years and another €10 million to produce another incomprehensible and virtually unreadable 2,000 page report would do no justice to hurt and betrayed people. The truth is that in the vast majority of cases the placements in that house were of very short duration and the children came to no harm. Grace and a couple of others did.
But here’s what that decision means. It means we’ll never know which public servant decided to keep Grace in that dangerous setting, against good professional advice, and why they made that decision. (Because it was a public servant ultimately who left Grace at risk.) And we will never know why internal HSE reports raised serious anxiety about sexual abuse, but the Farrelly Report dismissed that entirely, saying it found no evidence.
And we will never know why two whistleblowers were treated so shabbily. These two people – their names are Iain and Claire – had no motive other than the protection of a citizen of Ireland who was in their care and under their supervision. They only did the right thing – the thing we would hope any public servant would do at all times.
They did their jobs to the best of their ability, and they are the only people in this case who have been punished by the State, suffering enormous hardship as a result. The least they are owed is an apology from the Irish State. In my own personal opinion they are owed considerable financial compensation (although neither of them has ever asked for that).
The other consequence of abandoning the process now is that it finally denies justice to Fran. And to her mother Nuala. Fran lived, along with Grace, in that house for a number of years. She was grievously hurt, neglected and abused in the house.
I’m not going to go into the details, but I know beyond ever doubting it that Fran, who has an intellectual disability and has no speech, was groomed and sexually abused. Her mother Nuala discovered it and immediately sought to have her taken to safety. She reported the matter in detail and ultimately found herself as a witness in front of the Commission of Investigation.
Before I go further, I need to tell you that these are all the real names of the people involved. I want to use them, and I have permission to use them, for one reason and one reason only. These people have been robbed of dignity by a process that should never have been adversarial but was intensely so. I don’t know why that happened. But I do know they totally deserve their dignity back, and all of our respect.
I’ve known Fran’s sister Molly for many years. She is one of the most honest and honourable people I’ve ever met. She has always worked with people with a disability and has enhanced their lives. Molly and Fran’s mother Nuala is a warm-hearted and utterly honest woman. If she tells me something, I know that I can take it on absolute trust.
Nuala attended at the Commission on five separate occasions in 2017 and 2018. Three times she gave evidence, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, on behalf of her daughter Fran. She told the commission all the compelling reasons there were why she believed that Fran had been groomed, abused and damaged.
They were the worst days of her life. She left the commission traumatised after hours of examination and cross-examination, convinced she wasn’t believed. She told painful and difficult truths, without equivocating and in detail. The commission has now reported it found no evidence of abuse.
Nuala and Molly have spent years since helping Fran to rebuild her life. There was no financial settlement, of course, but they used a personalised budget funding package (a modest one) to help build Fran’s independence. And they have succeeded in helping Fran to be full of optimism. It’s been a remarkable journey, and it deserves to be recognised, notwithstanding anything the commission said or failed to say.
And by the way, as if to add insult to injury, the family incurred significant legal costs over the two years of their involvement with the commission. The commission is willing to pay only a tiny fraction of those costs. Rules and procedures, apparently.
Fran is a survivor of abuse. Her family, and not the State, is helping her to rebuild her life.
But who will acknowledge the truth the family has told? And there are other families. Who will apologise to all of them – not a bureaucratic apology by a state agency, but a statement from the heart, made to the Dáil, that acknowledges pain and suffering and betrayal, and recognises the debt all of us owe? That is surely the Taoiseach’s job and nobody else’s.
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