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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 March 2022
We have become complacent, developing a new language around explaining why children have been damaged by the actions of adults rather than expressing any new ambition to reduce the occurrence of such events … It is time that the authorities turn their minds to tackling the hard question and making decisions in principle about how child death inquiries should function. Decisions need to be made and agreements reached on a range of issues including: how information is to be shared and placed in the public domain; what is expected of State agencies in terms of their accountability to the public; the time frame for inquiries and the involvement of family members. (Emily Logan, Irish Ombudsman for Children, Sunday Business Post, 17 May 2009)
These observations from the Ombudsman for Children in Ireland crystallise the public frustration and fatigue concerning child abuse reports. The paradox is that while child abuse reports expose deep flaws in the system of child protection, it doesn't appear to improve – or does it? Are the tragedies that are investigated preventable? Do professionals, media and public hold shared understandings of who is responsible and what can be done to prevent child abuse? Is there a culture of disbelief about the social reality of child abuse? In this chapter, we seek answers from four Irish inquiries into child abuse by posing three simple questions: How did it happen? Why was such bad professional practice allowed to go on undetected and uncorrected? What can be done to improve the child protection system? The four public inquiries that we analyse are:
The Kelly Fitzgerald Report (1996)
The McColgan Report (West of Ireland Farmer case) (1998)
The Monageer Inquiry (2009)
The Roscommon Child Care Report (2010)
These four inquiries were among 29 child abuse inquiries and reviews carried out in Ireland between 1993 and 2012 and have been identified by Buckley and O’Nolan (2013: 50) as being among the most significant. Along with the landmark Kilkenny Incest Inquiry (1993) discussed in Chapter 2, these are considered as being the five core family inquiries in any analysis of Irish child abuse reports. Buckley and O’Nolan (2013: 25) view child abuse inquiries as a form of public catharsis and reassurance: ‘the reassurance provided by inquiries is normally understood as a form of collective or public reassurance’.
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