Inquiries and tribunals have cost the State a total of €544 million to date, including the recent Farrelly Commission that investigated the ‘Grace’ case.
It is the latest information collated for the end of last year and the figures were released by the Department of Expenditure.
The release of the figures follows remarks by one of the whistleblowers involved in bringing the ‘Grace’ case to light.
The whistleblower said he too made submissions to the commission, which were not included in the final report.
‘Grace’ is the pseudonym of a woman, now in her 40s, who has been in the care of the State all her life.
She has profound intellectual disabilities and is non-verbal.
Iain Smith, a former HSE social worker, appeared as a witness before the Farrelly Commission but also separately gave a lengthy written submission to the inquiry, which he says was not “acknowledged or included in any way in the report”, or “referred to during the workings of the commission”.
It comes a day after the General Solicitor for Minors and Wards of Court issued a statement, claiming that extensive submissions made to the commission by lawyers representing Grace were not included or referred to in any way in its final report.
Mr Smith said: “These were all great opportunities for Farrelly to find out more about Grace and indeed about the other children who were in that foster placement.”
He said he was not surprised at the omission.
“I’m not surprised that they weren’t included or referred to in the report. When you make a submission to the Health Board at the HSE or in this case the Farrelly Commission, and you don’t get any response, that leaves you in a dilemma or a binary position where you either ignore it, which makes you complicit with the whole situation, or you have to take an unprecedented step within your own professional boundaries and say this isn’t good enough.
“I’m not going to go along with this, which is a very uncomfortable position for the General Solicitor to have been in. I have a lot of sympathy for her, but she’s made the right decision”.
Mr Smith called on the commission chair, Marjorie Farrelly, to explain the decision.
He also questioned the future of commissions of inquiry.
“I think there are fundamental questions here about the nature of these commissions of investigation and how can we have more commissions of investigation when they seem to be failing so seriously, we need to know their workings and their logic and rationale”.
The Farrelly Commission found there was a fundamental failure on the part of the South Eastern Health Board and HSE in their duty of care to ‘Grace’.
It found evidence of serious neglect and financial mismanagement, but did not find any evidence of sexual or emotional abuse.
A planned second phase of the investigation involving the placement of 47 other children at the same foster home is not now going ahead.
Minister for Children Norma Foley said representatives of the Farrelly Commission wrote to her department on Wednesday to say “all steps were duly taken” in relation to submissions to the commission by individuals on behalf of Grace.
Speaking during a Dáil statements debate on the controversy this morning, Minister Foley said the commission want to make clear “its view” of the issue.
She also said that what happened to Grace was “heartbreaking and harrowing”, adding the situation was “unconscionable”.
Minister Foley said that she now intends to establish an “expert-driven non-statutory safeguarding exercise” and that people need to “work together to do better”.
Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald told the Dáil that she struggles to express “how astonishing and disappointing all this is”.
She rejected Minister Foley’s assertion that Grace was at the centre of the process, and said her rights had been undermined.
“We are still left in the dark on the critical, critical issues.”
The commission made a “rather anemic finding of neglect”, which she said insults Grace.
