Child neglect is not something in our past, it’s very much alive
IT WAS the name Charlestown that did it. Home to murdered Detective Garda Colm Horkan, the Mayo town was centre stage in the wake of last week’s tragedy.
For me, however, the mere mention of Charlestown always elicits the same response; I think immediately of Kelly Fitzgerald. Another name. Another tragedy. And yet another time when, as a country that believes in the fantasy that we always put the welfare of our children first, we were found wanting.
Of all the child abuse horror stories uncovered over the past decades, it is Kelly Fitzgerald who remains my touchstone. Perhaps it’s because, aged 15, she was on the cusp of adulthood at a point where, maybe, with just a little more time on her side, she might have survived. Perhaps it’s because there was someone in her family who genuinely cared for her and tried to help. Perhaps it’s simply because of the horrific nature of her neglect at the hands of her parents that I can never forget Kelly Fitzgerald.
When Kelly was met by her caring uncle at London’s Stansted airport in February 1993, having finally left her Mayo house of horrors behind, the teenager was in a wheelchair, skeletal in appearance and totally unresponsive.
It was too late to save her. Suffering from septicaemia and weighing only six stone, the physical and psychological abuse she had endured at the hands of her mother and father had rendered her fragile body unable to function. Two days after getting off the plane Kelly died in an intensive care unit.
The daughter of Desmond and Susan Fitzgerald, Kelly had lived with her parents and siblings in the “family” home just beyond Charlestown. God only knows exactly what went on in that house but suffice to say that apart from being starved, Kelly also suffered injuries consistent with being beaten with a leather strap and burned with cigarettes. She had also been forced to sleep outside at night.
Is it any wonder the then justice minister Máire Geoghegan Quinn described the Kelly Fitzgerald case as “the most horrific abuse case in the history of the State”.
God bless our innocence back in 1993 for there were many, many more horrific cases still to come to light.
For as young Kelly fought for her life in February 1993, Helen O’Donoghue still had another seven years of abuse ahead of her at the hands of her rapist father, James O’Reilly. As Helen and her sisters – all of whom were abused – courageously spoke their truth last week as their abuser was sentenced to 20 years, it was almost too much to bear. The horror. The pain. The anger. The relief.
Historic cases are one part of the horror jigsaw of abuse in this country and as a society we can make all the excuses we like about “the past”, none of which has any validity.
Not when you ask about which blind eyes were turned and about how our so-called protective authorities let so many of our children down. Over and over again. Tusla received 24,800 child abuse referrals in 2018. Yes, they were at least reported. And yes, there will always be child abusers. But it’s about priorities.
So it’s time to stop pontificating about how we have learned from past mistakes and now hold our children’s welfare above all else. We don’t.
Almost 30 years ago we abandoned Kelly Fitzgerald. And now what do we have? A potential new government that’s proposing to axe the one ministry that’s devoted to the welfare of children.
Talk about priorities. Talk about neglect.