Tusla social worker was ‘horrif ied’ by McCabe file errors
A SOCIAL worker was ‘horrified’ when she realised the errors made in relation to a file on garda whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe, the Charleton Tribunal has heard.
The tribunal is looking into the creation and distribution of files by Tusla and the HSE containing false allegations against Sgt McCabe, and whether he was the target of a smear campaign.
The Tusla file was opened when a young woman identified as Ms D sought counselling in 2013 about a previously reported allegation investigated by gardaí in 2006. The DPP decided in 2007 against pressing charges in the case due to lack of evidence.
Clair Tobin, a social worker with Sart, Tusla’s Sexual Abuse Regional Team, was sent the files on Sgt McCabe after his solicitors wrote to the agency complaining that he had been sent a letter in December 2015 stating he was suspected of child abuse.
But several documents that contained a more serious allegation incorrectly added to the McCabe file from an unrelated case, were not included when the file was sent to Ms Tobin.
She said missing from the file was a record of a meeting where the DPP directed no prosecution of Sgt McCabe in 2007 because ‘no criminal offence had been described or disclosed’. Ms Tobin said she was ‘horrified’ when she realised the errors made.
Tribunal chairman Peter Charleton asked her: ‘Given you know what you now know do you regard yourself as having been sent a sanitised version of the files as opposed to one with all of the reports, all of the events, all of the contents showing clearly?’
Ms Tobin said yes, adding: ‘I don’t know if it was their intention, I just can’t explain it. Stuff wasn’t put in the file where it should be. It’s not unique to this file, unfortunately. This is not just files in the Cavan region.
‘People fail to put things on files, unfortunately. The things that weren’t put on this file were quite significant.’
Ms Tobin said she didn’t know if the files were incomplete because of professional negligence or intentionally.
She said if a file was being sent elsewhere from her office, ‘you make sure everything is on that file that needs to be on that file. And anything you come across in the meantime you forward to the team that has the file’.
Judge Charleton asked whether she thought the file was incomplete because of ‘a cover-up’, or because of ‘an instinctive reaction to circle the wagons and pretend that things weren’t as bad as they were, in other words to pretend to yourself as opposed to other people’.
‘I really don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I think it’s really poor management of the file. I think it should have been allocated to someone straight away.
‘We would consider any allegation against a member of An Garda Síochána, a teacher, someone in our own organisation, we need for that to be dealt with extremely sensitively, and I know our practice within Sart, if something came in they’re immediately allocated and they’re responded to.’
Giving evidence yesterday afternoon, a senior Tusla manager said it was incompetence, not ‘something sinister’, that led to a false rape allegation being made against Sgt McCabe.
Linda Creamer, a regional service director with the child and family agency, apologised to the McCabes for what they endured.
‘We are genuinely sorry for the McCabe family to go through such stress. To see such a letter at any time is unacceptable.
‘Tusla is in the business of putting families together, not separating them as this could have done,’ Ms Creamer said.
She said she didn’t believe there was ‘something sinister going on’ in relation to Sgt McCabe: ‘I believe it’s incompetence in the governance of the file.’
Ms Creamer said people often saw a file as a series of tasks and didn’t see the faces and the families behind the documents.
‘I just can’t explain it’ ‘Really poor management’