Just because Ireland is geographically close to England it does not mean that Irish social workers need to ape their social norms. Read the following extract from Kevin Meyers and tell me that Irish social workers are not every bit as capable of child abuse as their English counterparts?
From Kevin Myers - Irish Independent Columnist
This State has had a few interesting periods in its 88 years of existence, but last week must be up there amongst the best.
By Friday, I no longer knew the difference between Tracey Fay, Danny Talbot and the somewhat inadequately named House of Horrors, wherein the mother found her husband raping their teenage son. Perhaps she found this inspirational, because she went on to rape her 13-year-old son.
Tracey Fay didn't need to be raped by a family member, because one way or another, the Republic of Ireland was, in its own idiosyncratic way, doing a pretty good job on her and her life. Ditto Danny Talbot.
You probably have some trouble remembering which is which. Was it Danny Talbot who had his teeth knocked while he was in care? And was it an undernourished and filthy Tracey Fay who was found covered in lice, urine and faeces? No, that was Danny's brother, Joe. Or was it David Foley?
No, on second thoughts, not him, because that poor teenager was already dead of a drugs overdose. And not Kim O'Donovan either: aged 15, she fatally overdosed. What they all had in common was that they were wards of the Health Service Executive (Ireland).
It is not good enough that the HSE did not pursue its lawful and constitutional obligations to protect children in the House of Horrors case, merely because of one court order which it could have opposed through legal methods.
Moreover, we know that this mysterious creature, the Irish 'social worker', generally speaking, has an office-bound existence which ceases on a Friday evening, when she goes home. And yes, for the most part, it is a she. Remember. On Tracey Fay's first night of being homeless in 1998, the 15-year-old asked a social worker to stay with her until the out-of-hours social worker arrived. The social worker refused and left her alone at a shopping centre at 6.40pm.
Tracey -- whose mother had knocked her teeth out when she was seven and who was the victim of five 'non-accidental' injuries before she reached the age of four -- then made her own way to Coolock garda station.
Well, a constitutional amendment would certainly have prevented that kind of carry-on!
That, dear readers, is a rhetorical device known as sarcasm. Which is perhaps the only tool capable of coping with this leviathan called the HSE, with its 100,000 employees (who, on average, each take 12 days' sick leave a year) and which cannot even be entrusted with a much-abused 15-year-old girl at 6.40pm without abandoning her.
Naturally, the HSE cannot say whether any social workers have been disciplined or had their careers in any way impaired, by the litany of failures associated with the death of the 23 young people who have died in their charge. Probably not.
For just being a social worker in HSE-land is a career in itself. Occupational duties are a purely voluntary addition to the existing pay-and-promotion structure.
From Kevin Myers - Irish Independent Columnist
This State has had a few interesting periods in its 88 years of existence, but last week must be up there amongst the best.
By Friday, I no longer knew the difference between Tracey Fay, Danny Talbot and the somewhat inadequately named House of Horrors, wherein the mother found her husband raping their teenage son. Perhaps she found this inspirational, because she went on to rape her 13-year-old son.
Tracey Fay didn't need to be raped by a family member, because one way or another, the Republic of Ireland was, in its own idiosyncratic way, doing a pretty good job on her and her life. Ditto Danny Talbot.
You probably have some trouble remembering which is which. Was it Danny Talbot who had his teeth knocked while he was in care? And was it an undernourished and filthy Tracey Fay who was found covered in lice, urine and faeces? No, that was Danny's brother, Joe. Or was it David Foley?
No, on second thoughts, not him, because that poor teenager was already dead of a drugs overdose. And not Kim O'Donovan either: aged 15, she fatally overdosed. What they all had in common was that they were wards of the Health Service Executive (Ireland).
It is not good enough that the HSE did not pursue its lawful and constitutional obligations to protect children in the House of Horrors case, merely because of one court order which it could have opposed through legal methods.
Moreover, we know that this mysterious creature, the Irish 'social worker', generally speaking, has an office-bound existence which ceases on a Friday evening, when she goes home. And yes, for the most part, it is a she. Remember. On Tracey Fay's first night of being homeless in 1998, the 15-year-old asked a social worker to stay with her until the out-of-hours social worker arrived. The social worker refused and left her alone at a shopping centre at 6.40pm.
Tracey -- whose mother had knocked her teeth out when she was seven and who was the victim of five 'non-accidental' injuries before she reached the age of four -- then made her own way to Coolock garda station.
Well, a constitutional amendment would certainly have prevented that kind of carry-on!
That, dear readers, is a rhetorical device known as sarcasm. Which is perhaps the only tool capable of coping with this leviathan called the HSE, with its 100,000 employees (who, on average, each take 12 days' sick leave a year) and which cannot even be entrusted with a much-abused 15-year-old girl at 6.40pm without abandoning her.
Naturally, the HSE cannot say whether any social workers have been disciplined or had their careers in any way impaired, by the litany of failures associated with the death of the 23 young people who have died in their charge. Probably not.
For just being a social worker in HSE-land is a career in itself. Occupational duties are a purely voluntary addition to the existing pay-and-promotion structure.
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