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THE DEPARTMENT OF Children has said it deleted reports pertaining to the welfare of children in State care due to concerns that processing the information would breach data protection regulations.
In May, the retired Judge Dermot Simms emailed the Minister, attaching four reports that expressed concern about children taken into care by Tusla.
Three out of four reports were deleted – a move which has been branded “crazy” by Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín, after he requested the information through a parliamentary question.
In a statement today, the Department said that Minister Roderic O’Gorman “shares the judge’s concern” but it “did not have a legal basis” to keep or process the information in the reports.
“Following consideration of the Department’s statutory responsibilities in relation to data protection, the Department formed the view that it did not have a legal basis to process the personal data contained in three of those four reports, and those reports were subsequently deleted from the Department’s records,” it said.
“The Department must discharge its statutory responsibilities under data protection legislation in relation to the processing of personal information.
“While the Department could not process three of the reports which were attached to the judge’s correspondence, the substantive issues to which the reports related were set out in the correspondence itself.”
It added that O’Gorman will continue to work with Tusla and others to ensure vulnerable children “receive the best possible service”.
“The care and welfare of children is a priority for Government, with a particular focus on those who are most vulnerable including children in the care of the State. The issues referenced in the judge’s letter are the subject of ongoing engagement between Tusla and the officials in his Department.”
Earlier this week, Tóibín described the Minister’s actions as “impossible to comprehend”, saying that the decision is an example of “GDPR overreach”.
“The Minister is directly responsible to ensure the safety of children in state care. A retiring judge stuck his neck out to bring very serious matters to the attention of the Minister for Children,” he said.
“I have had much contact with social workers on the ground who are very concerned about [Special Emergency Accommodation], in particular in relation to the astronomical amount of funding devoted to them, the lack of vetting procedures and qualifications of staff and the level of care to children in emergency accommodation.
“Following these concerns I asked the Minister if he would furnish me with copies of the reports. This week he replied saying that on foot of GDPR concerns three out of the four reports have been deleted upon receipt by his Department.
“This is crazy stuff – the idea that rather than acting on the very serious allegations and disclosures made by Judge Simms and the reports attached, the Minister instead opted to delete the correspondence.”
Tóibín accused the Minister of using GDPR “as cover for a lack of action”.
“The Minister, it seems, is deleting correspondence from a retired judge even though the children are anonymised in the reports, citing GDPR.
“Our care system is at breaking point – and Aontú believes we need better funding for voluntary care providers, much stronger regulation of Special Emergency Accommodation, better pay for foster families, more foster families and more social workers.”
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Very handy tool this GDPR when you need things to disappear
@Kevin McCormack: won’t be long so before SF/IRA will be using it
@Oisin CK: I think you’ll find they’ll open a Pandora’s box.
@Oisin CK: IRA gave you your rights..
@Oisin CK: why was the IRA created pal?
@Oisin CK: Perpetually online pathetic incel with no friends. miserable existence lol
@Oisin CK: oooohhh edgy as always Roj
@Oisin CK: uh huh…
Maybe they learned from the English who made a lot more than paperwork disappear over their 800 years of dictatorship.
To be clear, you’ve never said a bad word about millions killed and displaced over 800 years. Nope. Quiet as a church mouse.
On the other hand you spend hours a day attacking the IRA, which killed a few thousand civilians over a few decades.
A free thousand over a few decades VS millions over 800 years.
You’ve chosen the wrong side of history. And you’re proudly proclaiming to be on the side of literal genocide.
@Oisin CK: try coming into this century with your sfira comments . Ps up the Ra
@Oisin CK: Yes Stephen, No Stephen, Three Bags Full Stephen
@Oisin CK: get a life oisin and a brain while you’re at it.
You are getting tiresome.
@Kevin McCormack: God only knows what and for whom this is cover for.
@Oisin CK: FG man O Duffy was commander and chief of the RA. Before he turned Fascist and formed the blueshirts. Willing to send a brigade to aid Hitler on the eastern front only he was a drunk at that stage so the Nazis didn’t take him seriously
@desdaily1: Not PIRA. They have sullied the good name of the IRA. The Provos have no pedigree. They didn’t exist before 1969. They’ve no relation to the men who fought and died for our freedoms over 100 years ago.
Anyone thinking the great new secular dystopia would bring about change was deluded.
Seems the state operates with the same modus operandi regards institutional cover up as decades ago.
Beware Tusla.
A powerful organization with immense legal clout and full control over the children in this state, given to them by the result of the Children’s referendum.
@Tommy Haze: much prefer secular over Catholic control
@Oisin CK: are you a Green by any chance? You seem to be defending the indefensible!
@EMcD:
Oisin is a paid govt/ngo shrill who probably wants a commie govt. here
@EMcD: He is FF to the very core. He was part of their organisation one time until he lost the head.
@David Corrigan: is he mulligan??
@Tommy Haze: jazes this has NOTHING to do with secular, but if you’d like to compare the harm caused by the Catholic Church vs Tusla… Well I wish you luck.
@Chris O’Brien:
now do islam
any words about the grooming scandal in the UK
@EMcD: nope, but Catholics are far far worse than Greens
@EMcD: Can’t stand Greens, but they are no where as bad as Catholic Church
@Shane Doyle: Google ”A FORMER Fianna Fail special adviser has been forced to withdraw from … hunger strikers” and you’ll get his real name.
@Oisin CK: this time this has nothing to do with the Catholic Church, so why bring them into it? There is no defence for this behaviour. But as you did bring them into it, do you think this type of behaviour is similar to the cover up by the church? Are you going to answer this Oisin?
@Tommy Haze: The judge could remove all personal details that might identify anyone and reissue the 3 reports
@Shane Doyle: It’s Stephen Kearon.
@Oisin CK: I’m still waiting for your answer, you’ve gone very quiet. is this behaviour not as bad as the Catholic Church? Hello…Oisin??
@Oisin CK: this is exactly what the Catholic abusers did.
You have just stated you support it.
@David Corrigan: I knew there was a smell of abject failure and brown tongue…..Good aul cheerleader kearon with an alias of oisin and I’m betting he was roj before that
They were deleted to protect Tusla, in my opinion. Another cover up
Dept of children has to be the absolute worst government dept on this island. Shameful really.
He is a complete dis aster.
@BRENDAN O’CONNELL: The judge could remove all personal details that might identify anyone and reissue the 3 reports
@Michael Keegan: they probably could but the over reach and constant misuse of GDPR should be addressed for the broader good… this is a classic example of unintended consequences…the main thrust of data protection was in the main to have a mechanism to punish large corporations for not handling data correctly – that’s the fines of 4% of global turnover for abuse of data / but the wider use of data for criminal trials or in this case – reports – was never intended for to make things less effective and less efficient or to give cover to bad actors using GDPR as excuse / imo need to take stock and clarify the wider parameters that data can be used effectively and remove the fig leaf and over reach that’s widespread these days with the GDPR
This is like the episode of ‘Yes Minister’ on BBC4 now, where Civil Servants/Govt control the flow of information. Is the crime of child abuse and murder not more serious than protecting a Govt official., who hides behind GDPR. So much for Accountability!!
The irony of closing the comments on the Let Women Speak story.
@Eric Gaffney: I found that rather ironic too.
Can’t allow people express opinions against the narrative
Ah Tatchells buddy strikes again
As always, the powerful use GDPR to hide, but GDPR doesn’t ever seem to protect our data from being stolen, becuse those same people in power are utterly incompetent.
I’m not sure that what the law is supposed to do, help the rich and powerful, and hurt the poor and working people.
Corruption at its finest and we need to be careful when state actors use something like GDPR to act against the common good. This is truly despicable and Roderic So’Gormless really has no backbone to let this happen.
Yerra, I give up. Is there anything left that’ll go wrong in this G0ddam country?
@Max: ‘fraid things’ll continue as they are.
You can go to Mars and come back in 100 years: Children’s Hospital still not finished, rail link to Dublin airport still being debated, pointless opposition to any attempt at producing renewable electricity anywhere on the island still clogging the courts… You wouldn’t have missed much.
So all the pedos info deleted
Comments open shock shock
If Carlsberg did bad ministers .. sod Rick would be it .. a disaster for Ireland
This isn’t what GDPR was for. This is the obstruction of justice.
First we had Zappone – a foreign, childless, lesbian Wiccan – and now O’Gorman – a childless, gay, radical LGBTQIA+ activist – as our Minister for Children. Who’s next? A baby-eating hyena?
The Journal keeps deleting my comment because someone is offended by me stating the simple fact that a gay man is gay. So, instead, I’ll just call Roderic O’Gorman a big creep.
@Tríona Commode: if they keep deleting it why bother posting it over and over..? Have ye nothing better to be at?
Well done Roderic O’Gormless, you’ve just torpedoed your whole reason for being as The Minister for Children completely out of the water, and may I say, the whole reason for being of entire The Department of Children itself. Great job sir
Oops is the best word ever invented,
Our care system is NOT at breaking point. It is broken. We don’t give a da mn about children.
Paddy doesnt care. the rugby is on.
So dopey Fine Gael and half-witted Fianna Fáil, who cannot even get basic City Planning right, who cannot even fathom the fact that there would be a ratio requirement of Population to Services [fire fighters/nurses/doctors/Gardaí/HOUSING], think they know the LAW better than an actually *qualified* and *experienced* bleedin’ Judge?
Okay then. Yep. Why not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Exactly what is being deleted here? Surely. I mean fekin’ surely, they don’t mean the original record reports themselves? Because that would be truly insane. But regardless, be they critical original reports, or secondary reference reports – they were *anonymised*, right? And even if the general descriptions of the cases could lead to the subject persons of the case thinking they identify it as their own case, via component actions/failures within the case – that is not necessarily the fact. In all probability, the fact that a certain case or three were highlighted was likely based on the fact that this Judge has seen the same/similar repeated with such frequency that these cases highlight a recurring common pattern sich that, sadly, many more than those whom the report may actually be directly about, may equally identify with components of the report as though it was also a reference to their own cases.
I very much doubt that a Judge deemed such action necessary, with specific open reference to anonymised sample cases, on a feckless wim.
So basically the very same Political Parties are sweeping child abuse, child neglect and the *National State* failure of children’s wellbeing under the carpet, yet again. And guess what – the very same Party apologist and feeble-minded social conformist members of society who failed the children of M&BHs, will continue to vote for this failure (namely: Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil).
You don’t get to wail about and condemn Mother and Baby Homes, or wonder how Paedos fly under the radar, when you participate in the sustained cover-ups of *State* failures of the Nation’s children; you don’t get to cry foul when you continue to vote for, or act as apologist for, the same shower that swept similar (and often the same, but by different perpetrator) abuses and failures of welfare of Children, Teenagers and the *future* generations of this Island, under the carpet . . . .for ALL the decades since the foundation of the Free State.
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