A schoolgirl yesterday described her mother as “vermin” after a court heard harrowing details of the mother’s neglect of her seven children over a nine-year period.
The girl – now 17 – told Ennis Circuit Court about how, at the age of 10, she was left to care for her infant sister, who had been born prematurely
Wearing her school uniform in court, she said: “I was 10 years old, how I was supposed to know how to look after her? She was being neglected by her biological mother and left in my care.
“I didn’t know how to hold her or change her nappy. We didn’t have proper things like a bottle, a steriliser, a cot.”
Mother figure
The girl – described in court as a mother figure to the other children – said her mother “is cruel and evil”.
“She is very good at manipulating people,” she said.
“She warned us when social workers came out to the house to say that everything was fine and if we didn’t say that the social workers would take us away and burn the house down.”
The mother (39) has pleaded guilty to the neglect and ill-treatment of the five girls and two boys, over nine years, from March 2001 to July 2010.
Her former partner and the father of six of the seven children also pleaded guilty to the same offences yesterday and is to be sentenced at a later date.
The charges are contrary to section 246 of the Children’s Act.
The court was told yesterday the woman had a baby in September 2011 with a new partner.
The children who are the subject of the charges of the case before the court are all now in care and the mother is allowed supervised access to one of the children once a month.
In her victim impact statement yesterday, the 17-year-old girl said: “My belief to this day is that they had us to get child benefit.
“I had to look after my brothers and sisters while they went out drinking. I was beaten when things did not go right.”
She asked: “What kind of parents are they?
“They used to go out drinking during the day, there was no food in the house. I used to ask the local shopkeeper to give us a few things until Thursday, because that was dole day.”
Child Care Act
She added: “The Child Care Act says that every child has the right to live. Mine was denied to me. My mother and her partner used to leave the house and expect me to get the kids ready for school when they went off drinking every morning.”
The girl is not a daughter of the co-accused, he is father to the other six children.
She said: “I used to leave my baby sister on her own with a bottle and come back at break time and see if she was okay. We would be left hours with no food, they never cared for us.
Addressing Judge Carroll Moran, she said: “Judge, do you see how cruel they were to me and my brothers and sisters? All my life, no one listened to me. Don’t let my mother go free and unpunished.
“These people are vermin, they don’t care about anyone except themselves, they should rot in hell.”
Garda Róisín Ní Chatháin said alcohol was a huge factor in the case and that the mother would drink every day.
Garda Ní Chatháin said the mother had said she was now sober.
Community actions
Stephen Coughlan, prosecuting, said it was the actions of the community at large that brought the neglect to the attention of the HSE.
Judge Moran said it was a very difficult case and he adjourned sentencing to February 25th.
