Tusla to retain file on boy, 7, cleared of ‘sex abuse’
A seven-year-old boy, against whom an allegation of sexual abuse was made to Tusla, is to have a file on him retained on record in the child and family agency despite the complete dismissal of the allegation.
The boy was reported to Tusla by the principal of his school in Munster after a female classmate made two allegations in three months that he had “poked” her in the schoolyard.
There was no evidence for the first allegation and the second incident, caught on CCTV, showed a spontaneous action lasting less than a second.
The principal made an official report to Tusla on foot of this incident. The school policy for such incidents is to talk to the parents, and possibly seek advice from the HSE on what to do.
Once Tusla received official notification from the principal, it quickly examined the detail and dismissed the allegation as without foundation.
In a letter to the principal about the incident, a Tusla officer wrote:
The definition of sexual abuse is an abuse that occurs when a child is used by another person for his or her own sexual gratification or arousal. The two children involved in this alleged incident are seven years old…
“I want to clarify that normal sexual exploration involves naïve play between two children and one of the key aspects of this behaviour is its tone.”
Despite repeated attempts by the boy’s parents to address the record, Tusla has insisted it must stay on file.
The parents also made a complaint to the school’s board of management on the principal’s handling of the matter but it was dismissed. The board said it was its “considered view that the principal has followed all procedures and that he dealt with the matter in consultation with Tusla and the school’s protection policy”.
As a result of the fallout from the affair, the parents have moved their three children to another school.
“It destroyed us,” the boy’s father told the Irish Examiner. “I don’t say that softly. We have had to change school, club, and even the church we go to. My son is a soft guy and now he’s afraid to go near anybody. He did nothing wrong.
“Two of my kids spent time in therapy over it. They can’t get it into their heads we told the truth and we’re the people moved out of the school.”
He was particularly aggrieved at how the matter was handled by the school’s board of management.
“If they could just have admitted that what had been done was wrong, that a mistake had been made, there could have been some way back for us,” he said. “But instead they simply said they were backing the principal and he’d done nothing wrong.
Yet they could not show me anywhere that it said that making an official report to Tusla was the correct thing to do under school policy.
The president of the Irish Primary Principals Network, David Ruddy, said there is a one-day training programme for principals in the area of child protection.
“If a principal comes across a situation and he or she is not sure, normally they would ring Tusla, say this is the situation and check whether there should be a mandated report or not,” said Mr Ruddy. “If Tusla says a report is not required, the principal will still have to inform the board of management that Tusla was contacted.”
A spokesperson for Tusla said its record management policy sets out a number of record retention limits, up to and including perpetuity. There was no response to a question as to the precise policy or legislation that permitted the retention of data such as that referenced in this case in perpetuity.
“Legislation does not provide prescriptive retention periods for records but rather a framework within which multiple rights and statutory obligations must be balanced and apportioned,” said Tusla.
