Recommendations

Consequent on my findings, I recommended that the HSE should:-

1. Establish communication again with the couple with a view to initiating a fresh application for assessment as foster parents to the children.

2. In the event that such an application was approved by the Placement Committee, the HSE commit to payment of an enhanced allowance to the couple in addition to the foster care allowance on the basis of the original written agreement to them in June 2001. The enhanced allowance to be paid on the basis that it is compensation for loss of earnings due to the need for one or other of the couple to be available on a full-time basis for the children. The amount should continue to be paid for as long as the children are in the couple's care as foster parents under the regulations.

3. Pay a sum of €5,000 to the couple to cover the adverse effects experienced by Ms Brown and Mr Murphy and to reflect the time and trouble occasioned to them by the actions of the Board outlined in the findings above.

4. In the light of my findings in the report, review communications procedures at social worker level, and between the social worker and administrative grades.

5. In the light of my findings in the report, review record keeping practices at social worker level.

6. In the light of my findings in the report, review its procedures for dealing with complaints in the social work area to ensure compliance with the principles of good complaint handling and with good administrative practice.

All of the foregoing recommendations were accepted by the HSE. At the conclusion of my original report I made the following observations:

"One voice is absent from this composite outline of the report, and that is the voice of the children. As Ombudsman, I deal with the complainants, in this case, the couple wishing to foster the children, and the public body that is the subject of the complaint, in this instance, the Health Service Executive (formerly the Health Board). Nonetheless, I wish to make the following observations.

Three young children are at the heart of this investigation, despite the fact that the complainants and those complained of are adults. It is now eight years since those children were placed in voluntary care following the tragic death of their mother, and the shuttling between relatives, institutional care and the part time and sporadic care of the couple began. Their early childhood is now over, one child has already reached adolescence and the other two are not far behind. My recommendations, which I believe to be fair and balanced, provide a possible opportunity to retrieve the situation before too much more of the siblings’ childhood is gone".