Chapter 15 — Foster care

Witnesses

The majority of witnesses reporting abuse in foster care were the children of single parents and had scant information about their family background and social circumstances. They generally knew little about their family of origin and were reliant on official documentation for details of their place of birth and early life experiences. This documentation was most often reported to have been obtained through Freedom of Information legislation, family tracing services and other charitable organisations.

Family of origin, place of birth and current residence details are differentiated by gender when there are notable differences; otherwise they are reported collectively.

Twelve (12) of the 24 witnesses reported that they were born in Dublin, 11 witnesses were born in eight other Irish counties and one witness was born outside the State.

Fourteen (14) witnesses reported that their mothers were unmarried at the time of their birth. Three (3) female witnesses reported being the children of extra-marital relationships who were placed in foster care as infants by mothers who reared other children within marriage. A further three witnesses reported not knowing anything about the circumstances of their birth.

Four (4) witnesses reported being placed in foster care in the context of marital separation or parental illness.

Ten (10) witnesses reported having siblings, some of whom they had contact with during their childhood and others who they have only become aware of in recent years through the process of family tracing. Nine (9) of these witnesses reported having siblings in care. Two (2) of those witnesses reported being initially placed from their family homes in the same foster home as their siblings with whom they maintained contact. Five (5) of the witnesses reported that they and their siblings had been placed in out-of-home care because their mothers were lone parents and unable to support them due to their social and economic circumstances.

Eight (8) witnesses had never been able to establish whether or not they had any siblings or other living relatives and six witnesses reported that they had no siblings.

Witnesses had relatively little information about their parents’ occupational status, which in 13 instances was reported as unskilled and in 11 instances was recorded as unknown.

At the time of their hearing the age of witnesses who reported being abused in foster care ranged between 20 and 74 years. Ten (10) witnesses were aged over 60 years at the time of their hearing. A further nine witnesses were aged between 40 and 59 years and five others were under 40 years of age.

At the time of their hearing 19 witnesses were living in Ireland and five were resident in the UK.

Twenty (20) of the 24 witnesses had been in foster care or institutional care since their first year of life. As previously stated, most of these witnesses were the children of lone mothers who were reported to be unable to care for them for various reasons.

Four (4) witnesses reported that they lived with their parents for the first few years of their lives but were then placed in foster care following family breakdown, parental illness or marital separation. These witnesses were initially admitted to Children’s Homes, Industrial Schools or other institutions with siblings from whom some were then separated.

Among those witnesses who reported being in out-of-home care for lengthy periods, seven witnesses reported that their placement in foster care followed a series of other placements over a period of up to seven years. These witnesses reported being in Children’s Homes, county homes, hospitals or Industrial Schools for varying periods of time prior to being placed in foster homes that, in most instances, became their final childhood residence. All of these witnesses were the children of lone mothers with whom they reported having no further contact.

Seven (7) other witnesses were fostered before their first birthday from the institutions where they had been born, including county homes, mother and baby homes and nursing homes.

Six (6) witnesses reported being transferred to foster homes from different placements, including other foster homes, where they had been happily settled over a number of years. Two (2) of the six witnesses reported being placed with foster families following the closure of the residential institutions where they had lived for many years.