The North Western Health Board has said it will publish the findings of an independent inquiry into the McColgan abuse case within weeks. "We are glad that a settlement has been reached which will provide compensation to the four members of the McColgan family. We had sought to resolve this matter in this way," the board said in a statement.
However, the Fine Gael spokesman on health and children, Mr Alan Shatter, has demanded that the Minister for Health order a separate public inquiry which would also examine the legal strategy pursued by the board.
"It's outrageous that a health board that was aware of information on its files put the four McColgan children through a 13day hearing, compounding the hurt by defending the case in the way it did," he said.
The health board review group was set up to examine the case and had suspended its inquiry during the action by the McColgan family.
A Dublin management consultant and qualified social worker, Mr Michael Bruton, is head of the group, Dr Sheila Ryan, chief executive of the Western Health Board, who was on the team which reported on the Kilkenny incest case, is also on the group.
The third member is the Eastern Health Board director of child care, Mr Paul Harrison.
Its terms of reference include reviewing the board's involvement in the case, assessing its response then and the likely level of response now.
The group is also asked to make recommendations to "ensure that in any such case the board response is effective".
The board said it was confident that services were effective. With the 1991 Child Care Act "more effective policies and procedures are in place, management structures have been strengthened, training has been improved, coordination of services has been improved and there has been an additional £3 million in resources provided.
"We have been appalled at the details of the suffering of the McColgan children at the hands of their father, Joe McColgan. We sincerely hope that each of them will be able to recover fully from the effects of their ordeal."
Mr Shatter accused the board of hiding behind the statute of limitations and called on the Government to introduce legislation preventing health boards from using this as a defence. "Neither should the health board be able to rely by way of legal strategy on any technical legal mechanisms to try to prevent the full truth from being known."
There was also a need for new guidelines on child care, Mr Shatter said. The last guidelines were published in 1987, before the introduction of the Child Care Act.
The ISPCC praised the courage of the McColgan children "who have gone through a gruelling ordeal in both the criminal and civil courts to pursue justice and truth in respect of one of the worst-ever child abuse cases in the history of the State".
Its chief executive, Mr Cian O'Tighearnaigh, also called for a public inquiry. He said that while there were new laws in place since the McColgan case the system was still under-resourced, poorly managed and defensive.
