The tragic death of 18-year-old Tracey Fay in January 2002 highlights many of the shortcomings of the Irish child-care system reports Kitty Holland
When Tracey Fay's small-framed body was found amid discarded sleeping bags and dirty blankets, outside the toilet area of a disused basement in January last year, she had been there at least 24 hours.
Just two months past her 18th birthday, the mother of two had been homeless since she was 14.
Though she had come to the attention of the health services at the age of 14, "nothing consistent was done for her", says a social worker who had tried to make the care services work for her through the four years to her death last year.
"She was," says the same social worker, "the most exposed, vulnerable, undefended child I have ever come across in the 10 years I have been working in this area. No matter who we tried to get to listen, nothing consistent was done for her."
At an inquest into her death yesterday, the Dublin Coroner's Court returned a verdict of death by misadventure.
Tracey was born to Doreen Fay, a young woman from Dublin's Artane area, in November 1983. Though little is known about her early childhood, it is known her mother began a relationship with a man, not Tracey's father, when Tracey was about two. Her early years at home were difficult and, at the age of six, Tracey went to live with her maternal grandparents in the Harmonstown area.
She began staying out all night when she was 14, when her grandmother became ill with cancer. By this stage her mother had moved to England with her partner. Her grandmother died and, according to some, her grandfather could not cope with Tracey.
She left home altogether in 1997, and made her first contact with the Out Of Hours service for homeless children, run by the then Eastern Health Board.
In theory this service, open from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., should make contact with homeless children, assess them, find them an emergency bed and put them in contact with the relevant Community Care team which should take on the case the next morning. In theory, Out Of Hours should see a child once, at most twice, and the system should then kick in and care for that vulnerable child.
However, Tracey, like many others, returned to the service, night after night after night, for months.
"Tracey had very, very special needs. She was like a child, 14 going on four," says one social worker who knew her at this time.
Though sexual abuse was never verified, another worker described the 14-year-old as having been "dramatically sexualised by the time she came to us".
Samantha, a young woman who was in the same hostel as Tracey at the end of 1997, said Tracey "was always sleeping with different men, whether they were young fellas, old fellas, drunks, travellers, black fellas. She was always on the arm of some fella, just looking for someone to be loving her I suppose."
Towards the end of 1997, Tracey was placed in Lefroy House, a hostel for young girls on Eden Quay, where she stayed for about five months. Samantha describes a young teenager over eager to please, willing to do anything for people "if they'd like her. She had no confidence, didn't think she was lovely or anything," says Samantha.
Tracey left Eden Quay after five months, drifting from B&B to B&B. According to court affidavits on her situation, Tracey had more than 14 "unsuitable placements", mainly B&Bs, between then and her death. A psychiatrist's report in December 1998 found a "very vulnerable," girl, "in need of a secure residential placement".
A second psychiatric report described the level of care she was getting as "disastrous", while a third described her as feeling "helpless and abandoned and incompetent to take charge of her life". At no point was a care plan devised for Tracey.
At 15 she was pregnant and, according to Samantha, "delighted". She was placed in Eglinton House, a mother-and-baby support unit in Donnybrook, eight weeks before the birth of her son, Luke. Her parenting skills were described as "disastrous" and the baby was taken into care at four months.
"She was in bits," says Samantha. "All she talked about after that was getting her baby back."
After Eglinton House, she was back between B&Bs and the streets. She became pregnant again towards the end of 2000, when she was 17, and had a daughter, Danielle, in June 2001.
She was afraid of losing her daughter but, initially, mother and baby were placed in Orchard View, a group home owned by the Northern Area Health Board in the Grangegorman area. Later her daughter was taken into care, though Tracey stayed on in Orchard View.
Though legally she was no longer the responsibility of the health board once she turned 18, she stayed on in Orchard View.
She was reported missing by Orchard View staff on January 20th, 2002. Four days later, the dark-haired young woman "with the kiddie looks" was found dead.
A child-care worker who knew her for the last four years of her life commented to The Irish Times in the days following Tracey's death that a child had to be "very tough to survive the child-care system. And Tracey wasn't very tough".