I thank the Chair and committee for the invitation to appear before them today on behalf of the Alliance of Birth Mothers Campaigning for Justice. My name is Anna Kavanagh and I am co-founder of and convenor to the alliance. I am joined by our secretary, Dr. Finbar Markey, and our lead researcher, Ms Michelle Monaghan.
We welcome the opportunity the committee is giving us to discuss the difficulties with Tusla experienced by the mothers we represent. The Alliance of Birth Mothers Campaigning for Justice was set up in June 2019 and is currently Ireland’s largest non-Tusla funded, non-State funded advocacy group for mothers in difficultly with Tusla, the Garda and the family court.
We receive no funding and work in a voluntary capacity and the occasional expenses we incur are met entirely out of our own pockets. We currently are going through a shameful period in Irish history where women and children who are being abused by the State are silenced by the in camera rule operating in the family court that denies them their constitutional rights to speak out about what is happening to them. We are their voice today to articulate their grievances and their hope for reforms that will give them the justice they are currently denied. The dysfunction in Tusla that is leading to the failure to protect some of the children that they have taken into State care is hiding in plain sight.
The following are from headlines and by-lines from this year alone. A headline in the Irish Examiner on 28 May stated "Tusla reports doubling of children in State care who may have been targeted for sexual exploitation", while a headline in The Irish Times on 27 May stated "When it comes to the State's most vulnerable children, we don't seem to learn from our failures". That was from an opinion piece that appeared in The Irish Times from Dr. Carol Coulter, director of the Child Law Project. According to the Irish Examiner on 21 May, "it is taking seven to eight years for child sexual abuse cases to get to court because of ongoing problems in sharing data between Gardaí and Tusla". On the front page of the Irish Independent on 21 May, it was stated "Children held in care for twice as long as legal limit". On 9 May, RTÉ reported "Babies in State care placed in private, unregulated settings". On 22 April, the Irish Examiner reported that "Almost 30 children in State care have disappeared this year, with the whereabouts of 22 still unknown". On 13 April, the Limerick Post reported that Tusla is taking two years to investigate sexual abuse. On 25 March, The Irish Times reported that internal Tusla documents revealed cases of children in emergency accommodation contracting scabies and living in rooms with bedbugs. Another opinion piece in The Irish Times on 27 March from Dr. Carol Coulter asked why are we still so badly failing children in care. On 25 March, The Irish Times reported that children in emergency State care were at risk of abuse. On 3 March, the Irish Daily Mail reported that the State spent €70 million on unsuitable housing for children in care and on 1 March, it reported that Tusla spent €14 million placing children with unvetted firms. On 28 February, the Irish Examiner reported a "Garda investigation is underway into allegations Tusla placed vulnerable children into unregulated emergency accommodation" and on 22 January, that newspaper reported that "Unvetted care workers subcontracted by Tusla were given access to vulnerable children at risk of abuse". A headline the Irish Independent on 15 January referring to a HIQA report stated "Baby in foster care not seen by social worker for ten months due to staff pressures, inspectors reveal". Another headline in the Irish Independent on 15 January stated "Judge's 'rage' over boy (15) in care who hadn't had even one day of school since primary".
Finally, on 8 January, The Irish Times reported "Tusla delays [may have put] children at risk ..., HIQA finds".
This is just a sample of headlines and together, they paint a grim picture of the dysfunction in the child and family agency, which Dr. Markey will appraise further. We wish to acknowledge the work of those reporters who have been shining a spotlight on Tusla since it began operating just over ten years ago, including Kitty Holland, Debbie McCann and Jack Power to name but a few. There was great expectation that on taking over the role of child welfare and protection from the HSE, Tusla would end the dysfunction in the system stretching back several decades. Alas, this has not materialised and Ms Monaghan will elaborate on this.
The message I wish to deliver here today from the mothers on whose behalf we are speaking is that behind these headlines are heartbroken mothers, battered and bruised by agents of the State who are failing to protect them and their children. The great scandal of our time is the failure to hold Tusla to account for its failure to protect children it has taken into State care from sexual abuse and sexual exploitation. Tusla does not have a centralised database on the number of children in State care that go missing, nor does it have a centralised database on the number of babies a few days old who it takes into State care.
Last year, I interviewed 20 mothers at length about their experience of Tusla and got 20 ladies to do the voice-over to protect their anonymity for a podcast series called "Justice for Birth Mothers". The headlines above refer to children missing from State care and the failure to protect children in State care from sexual abuse. This is what Muriel, not her real name, told me:
My daughter went missing out of the foster care. I got a tip off that she was missing and that she was being sexually abused in that foster home and Tusla was notified and the guards knew about it. I was not notified that my daughter was missing out of the foster home. It was an anonymous call. It was a mother from the school because videos of my daughter had gone around the school on Snapchat. She was found in a very isolated rural area miles and miles away from the foster home and there was no bus link there, so she had to have been brought there in a car. I was told by Tusla she had a boyfriend and she went there to see a boy. But my daughter was [just] 13 years of age at the time. So, someone who can drive with a 13-year-old to me is an adult man with a ...vulnerable child. There was absolutely no investigation done. A male [Tusla] social worker picked her up and drove her back to the foster home.
When I raised this issue in court, the male [Tusla] social worker gave evidence that the judge accepted that she didn't want to talk about it. I was forbidden then by the judge to ask [any] questions.
In summary, Tusla’s failure to protect children it takes into State care is hiding in plain sight, captured by mainstream headlines on an almost daily basis. Behind these headlines are mothers like Muriel and their children silenced by the in camera rule, unable to speak out about the effects of Tusla’s failures on them and their children. There is an unbroken chain of State abuse of mothers and children that did not end with the closure of the last mother and baby home.
The State abuse of mothers and their children is ongoing. We excuse past generations for their failure to speak out at the time because it was generally not fully known what was happening. Future generations will never forgive us if we do not bring an immediate end to the State abuse of mothers and children because we know and appear to be doing very little to halt it. It is beyond my level of competency to tell the members what the solution is. My purpose coming before the committee today is to articulate the cries of the mothers that we represent in the Alliance of Birth Mothers Campaigning for Justice and to appeal to the members' better natures to act immediately to bring about an end to this injustice.
Silence is complicity. To conclude, we welcome any questions the committee may have for us. I will hand over to Dr. Markey.
