Chapter 15 — Foster care

Emotional abuse

The experience of being placed with foster families was marked by loneliness and isolation for many of the 24 witnesses who gave evidence to the Committee, 18 of whom reported being emotionally abused while in foster care. They reported feeling ‘abandoned’ to their fate, ignored by State authorities, and forgotten about by parents and relatives, including biological parents, some of whom subsequently married and reared families.

Four (4) witnesses reported being placed with foster families where they were exposed to trauma and emotional instability in the context of domestic violence, marital conflict or mental illness. There were rows all the time, when something would go wrong we ... (foster children)... were called names. If something was lost ... (foster mother would say)... “that bastard’s lost it”. ... (foster carers were)... always throwing things around.

Four (4) other witnesses reported being removed from placements where they had been settled, and relocated with different foster carers. They reported that the transfers occurred without discussion. The witnesses believed that their placement transfers were facilitated for the specific purpose of providing company and assistance to elderly, childless individuals and couples.

One witness described spending the first nine years of his life in a foster home where he was very happy and where he suffered no abuse. He recounted being sent with 24 hours’ notice and no explanation to another foster home where he was physically and sexually abused. Another witness reported being removed from a settled placement to be sent as a foster child to an elderly woman, commenting that the papers facilitating this placement were signed by a priest who was a close relative of the woman. A male witness reported being sent from a residential institution where he had been placed with his siblings. He reported that he was placed with a farming couple who had no children, where he worked hard until he was discharged to his own family when he was 16 years old.

Eleven (11) witnesses reported being shown no affection by their foster parents. The experience of being deprived of affection was particularly remarked upon by witnesses who were placed with families where there were biological children. Witnesses reported being treated differently and less favourably than the biological children; for example three witnesses reported being sexually abused by the sons of their foster parents from whom they were afforded no protection.

Eight (8) witnesses reported that their foster parents were consistently harsh and unkind to them. They reported being treated as unpaid labourers rather than as children and frequently reminded that they were ‘orphans’. She ... (foster mother)... was always telling me “I’m not your mother, I got you from the Home and I can give you back just as quick”. ... This woman didn’t want me and she couldn’t get rid of me. • We had to put up with her ... (foster mother)... and her uncontrollable temper. She will probably never know the hurt she has caused or the influence she has had. I don’t think she ever saw me as a child, just an annoyance and every little thing I did just annoyed her. She hated me, she told me often enough.

A number of witnesses described being isolated from support both within the foster home and in the wider community. They reported being forbidden to speak or interact with the biological children in the family and were discouraged from sharing confidences with other foster children. Witnesses described witnessing other foster children in the family being abused but feeling unable to defend them or offer them any support for fear of attracting similar abuse themselves. ‘We...foster children... didn’t talk to each other, we all lived in a sort of personal isolation because we couldn’t trust each other...

Witnesses also described being prevented or discouraged from interacting with neighbours. Three (3) witnesses regarded this as a protective measure due to the derogatory manner in which they were treated by the neighbouring children. Witnesses also reported being ostracised in the local school, subjected to offensive remarks from other children and, in four instances, from teachers. ‘Some of the local school children knew we were bastards, told us so and threw stones as we passed’. Other witnesses believed that being forbidden to speak to local children was a means of reinforcing their isolation and sense of being different from other children.

It was reported that the neighbours of one foster family were particularly kind and it was believed that they attempted to protect the foster children in various ways. A witness reported that she and other foster children were sent out at night to steal from these neighbours’ fields, causing much fear and anguish: We’d be sent to steal firewood from the neighbours...you’d be frightened and they’d ... (foster parents)... kind of absolve themselves of all responsibility because they’d say ... “you’re orphans, we won’t have any responsibility, that ... (stealing)... is expected of you kind of people”.... You knew you were doing something wrong, at school we knew the 7th commandment, “thou shalt not steal”.... I was totally confused by all this and the fact that they’d ... (foster parents)... report it was us who stole.... It wasn’t a nice feeling.

Denigration and humiliation was described by witnesses as taking several forms. Fourteen (14) witnesses reported being called names, with particular reference to the circumstances of their birth: ‘nothing but a bastard’, ‘you are whore’s milk’, ‘a black man’s bastard’, ‘Local people referred to us as... ‘X’s... (foster mother’s)... bastards’. Witnesses also reported being called derogatory nicknames with reference to personal features or characteristics. Three (3) witnesses had physical disabilities that they reported were the subject of constant ridicule and humiliation.

Other experiences reported by witnesses were being denied privacy for bathing, being subjected to derogatory remarks about bed-wetting and other personal matters in front of members of the household, and being made to eat apart from the family or outside the house with farm animals. One witness described being made to walk several miles to Mass each Sunday, while there were bicycles in the house that he was never allowed to use.

Five (5) witnesses reported that they did not know their own birth names or were not called by their birth names and three witnesses reported being misled about their biological family. The problem is I wasn’t registered when I was born, I have no birth cert. I was baptised twice, but I have no birth cert. When I was going to buy a house one time, they said I had to get a ... birth cert. I went in to Lombard House looking for a birth cert ... never heard of me. You can’t go away or anything, or you can’t get a passport. • I wasn’t ever called by my name.... It is hard ... (to talk about)... some of this thing, because it is so personal ...distressed... because it’s like remaining that person ...(with the derogatory name)... and I think they did a good job. I was called ...X (reference to physical attribute)... I’d only ever hear my... (real)... name when the authorities came. ... I can see this man, this tall stately person, coming down on a bicycle. I think he used to pay them their dues for foster care ... then I’d know my name. • She’d ... (foster mother)... say I was nobody anyway.... I felt this psychological abuse was very hard to take.... She succeeded in making me feel I was nobody. • I find my childhood haunts me. I’ve been searching for who I was...I sat for a week when I got the letter to say that I actually came from somewhere...when I go to Ireland I actually feel the pain of not belonging. • When I was 15 I thought that maybe someone would come and say “well here’s your letters and your papers and things about your mother” and all that but the people that knew my mother would never tell me anything. Up to less than 10 years ago there were people who knew her but they wouldn’t tell me anything.

One witness became aware that the foster mother knew the whereabouts of the witness’s siblings but refused to disclose this information. Another witness reported being told as a child that his biological parents were dead and subsequently learned that his foster carers had always known that this was not true. Another witness reported becoming aware in more recent years that a child who was in the same foster home throughout childhood was, in fact, a sibling.

Knowledge of abuse

Witnesses commented that the public nature of certain aspects of the abuse they were subjected to made awareness by others unavoidable. They reported being abused in front of others, being visibly neglected and unhappy and presenting to doctors and hospitals for the treatment of injuries inflicted through abuse and violence. They reported being aware that neighbours, teachers, visiting professionals and members of the local community knew they were being abused in their foster homes. Witnesses reported that disclosures of abuse were at times investigated with positive outcome. Other witnesses stated they were either ignored or punished when they disclosed their abuse.

Eleven (11) of the 24 witnesses reported that they disclosed their abuse to someone or confronted their abuser and successfully resisted any further abuse. When I was 17 I went to...professional...one day, I didn’t know where to go... I spent about 2 hours, I brought everything...(sexual abuse)... out to her, crying to her, non-stop... and although I didn’t know it at the time she obviously reported it to the Health Board and it was to get priority... I read that on the files... (afterwards)... but it never got priority, nobody ever came back to me.