A whistleblower who was one of two social workers who raised the 'Grace' case has said the experience has taken a "big toll" on him and claimed: "The State will try to crush you."
Iain Smith, who worked as a social work manager in the HSE's Waterford office when he first became of aware of Grace in 2007, said the handling of the case is a "very strong deterrent to whistleblowers in Ireland".
"Anyone should be very afraid of coming forward in Ireland as if they set up one of these commissions of investigations, you will lose your life for a year whole year," he said, adding that he said this to the Tánaiste Simon Harris but received a "brush off".
"Anyone else coming forward now runs the risk of a commission of investigation, which will in the end come to nothing".
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, he said: "I think anyone who's thinking of coming forward in Ireland and divulging tales of abuse that they have heard in their workplace needs to know what the State can do to you.
"The State can crush you, the State will try to crush you."
Yesterday, the Farrelly Commission published its long-awaited report into the 'Grace' foster home abuse case in the southeast of the country.
The near 2,000-page €13 million investigation said it could not establish that marks and bruises on her were the result of serious physical or sexual abuse.
Mr Smith described the report as a "complete waste of time".
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He described the case as a "long-running intrigue", involving "many, many different parties" over a "long period of time".
He defined "intrigue" as an "entanglement," and to try to "recharacterise" it as "institutional failures is a fundamental error not just of the Farrelly Commission but also of other reports as well".
He said it had taken a "big toll" on him emotionally, financially, and on his family.
The social worker said that during the 700 hours spent being involved in giving evidence to the investigation, it was impossible to work or think about anything else except the case, and that the process was totally unpaid.
"My health was deteriorating and I don't think I was the only person. The whole process was abusive, punitive and it was there to really destroy me, that’s how I felt in terms of it being so unnecessary," he said.
Becoming aware of 'Grace' case
Mr Smith explained that he had been working in the HSE's Waterford office for "just a couple of months" when his colleague received a phone call from "Grace's mother inquiring how her daughter was doing".
Mr Smith said he was left "scratching his head" because her mother was saying that her daughter was in foster care, which he described as "surprising" as foster care usually ends at age 18.
Mr Smith and his colleague checked the file and after a "casual read", he then began a "deep read, line by line, of the file", and discovered that there were allegations of child sexual abuse involving this foster placement.
"The allegations went back quite a long way," he added.
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Mr Smith then "tracked back to find out when those concerns had actually begun".
He said he had "concerns" and that when he met Grace he and his colleague were "horrified, at the foster carer, some of the comments that she made".
"She was drawing our attention to how slim Grace was and she said she thinks she's 16, which is a very bizarre thing to say about an adult with a learning disability, whose mental age is between one or two years of age," he said.
He described as "grossly inappropriate" the remarks the carer was making.
'Great deal of shenanigans and intrigue'
Mr Smith said he then wrote a report, which was "very long" because he included in it the names of other children who had been through the placement and he made recommendations "about everything".
He said they needed to proceed immediately to the High Court for Grace to become a Ward of Court.
"And a Committee of the Person needed to be set up, preferably including Grace's mother and that we need to use the powers given to the Committee of the Person by the Court to find Grace a safe place to live," he added.
Mr Smith said that, subsequently, a "great deal happened ... of shenanigans and intrigue" between him handing in the report in January 2008 and her moving from the foster care in July 2009.
He and his colleague also brought Grace to hospital during the period as they were "so concerned about injuries that she had, and many, many other things that were going on".
He added the files were taken off him in April 2008 and he was advised not to work on the case anymore.
Appearing before the Commission
However, in 2018 he received documentation via a solicitor from the Farrelly Commission.
He said there were "hundreds of documents" and that he was instructed to read "immediately" and to reply with his comments.
Mr Smith said he did not think this was "practical" and he thought it would be a matter of giving his own evidence [to the commission] in September 2018.
"In total I had given at least 27 days, full days, 10(am) 'til 5pm of evidence to that Commission," he said.
He said he wrote in May 2019 to then minister for health, Simon Harris, by at which stage he had given "700 hours" of his time to the commission.
He said he had to read thousands of documents and had to study them as he was going to be cross-examined in detail over a period of months.
He told Mr Harris that the "whole thing should be shut down" because it was a "boondoggle - that is a complete waste of time, a project that is going absolutely nowhere.
"And I could see that very clearly way back then," he added.
Mr Smith said that he had read the previous reports in detail and found they were a "complete waste of time".
He added that it was "no surprise" to him that yesterday's report followed on from the previous one in being "fundamentally of no use whatsoever".
He said that the findings in the report published yesterday in relation to physical and sexual abuse were "shocking" and that it appeared to be disregarding some of the findings of his own report, which he said were based on risk.
"There seems to be a mismatch here between thinking that if you can't prove something to a very high legal standard, then it hasn’t really happened. It seems to imply that some of the witnesses who came forward weren’t believed. I think that is genuinely shocking".
'Very chilling'
The Ombudsman for Children, Niall Muldoon, described Mr Smith's comments as "very chilling" and said it was "a horrible thing to have to hear in the year 2025".
"What he [Iain Smith] is saying there is that the system is built around protecting the system, and that's not the way it should be, particularly for child protection and child care," Mr Muldoon said.
"Children should be at the centre of these things, and if something goes wrong - which it always will, mistakes are normal, it's part and parcel of everybody's life ... but the reality of those mistakes should be highlighted very, very quickly, should be transparent, and they should be fixed quickly," he said.
Speaking on RTÉ's Drivetime, Mr Muldoon said his "overriding" reaction to the report is "sadness and disappointment for the family of Grace", adding that she "suffered at the hands of the State".
He said all her mother wanted from the commission was to understand what the problems were and why her child suffered so much.
"And there is nothing there for them as far as I can see," he said.
"They must be seriously disappointed and the sadness that must come with that, feeling let down once again," he added.
Mr Muldoon said it is clear that the State "let Grace down in numerous different ways" and there is a need to ensure that it does not happen again.
Call for robust adult safeguarding
Commissions of inquiries are not suitable mechanisms by which to review safeguarding concerns, nor do they promote a culture of genuine learning, according to the Irish Social Workers Association (IASW).
Responding to the Farrelly Commission report, the IASW said witnesses had "advised" that they felt traumatised in what they described as an adversarial environment.
In a statement, the professional body for social workers pointed to "a process which could never support the kind of sensitive, skilled reflection and dialogue required to better understand what happened to 'Grace' and how we can learn from it".
It said the publication of the document "which has neither an executive summary nor clear recommendations" - has ensured the report "remains inaccessible for most people, even those most impacted by it".
The IASW has also said the "threshold of evidence" used in the Farrelly Commission of Inquiry is "very different" to those used in expert safeguarding reviews which promote "meaningful learning".
It has called for the introduction of robust adult safeguarding in the wake of the Grace case considering that legislation was not introduced by Government after the ‘Brandon’ and ‘Emily’ cases.
Without robust adult safeguarding legislation with mandatory reporting to ensure safeguarding concerns are recognised and reported, the IASW said social workers cannot adequately support or protect adults at risk of abuse in Ireland.
"The ongoing failure to provide allocated social workers or regulated placements to all children in care in 2025 begs the question - what have we truly learned," it said.
It acknowledged the commitment of the two social workers who "worked tirelessly" to support Grace at "immense personal and professional cost", in what it described as an oppressive, silencing culture.
It also expressed solidarity and support to ‘Grace’, her mother and with all of those who supported justice for her.
