IRELAND
Irish Examiner
Monday, July 24, 2017
By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter
The HSE has refused to say why concerns about infant deaths and possible trafficking from Bessborough in Cork and the Tuam Mother and Baby Home were not reported to the then health minister.
The Irish Examiner revealed, in 2015, senior management within the HSE had raised concerns about “shocking” infant mortality rates and possible trafficking of children at both the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home as well as the Tuam home in 2012 — two years before the Tuam babies scandal emerged.
A note of a teleconference call on October 12, 2012, involving then head of the medical intelligence unit, Davida De La Harpe, and then assistant director of Children and Family Service, Phil Garland, revealed management felt what had been discovered in Tuam warranted a state inquiry.
The note concludes by stating, due to the gravity of what was being found, an “early warning letter” be written to the national director of the HSE’s quality and patient safety division, Philip Crowley, suggesting “that this goes all the way up to the minister”.
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