If you put television cameras into this place, the nation would be shocked to its core, writes Mary Raftery
Among the events recorded, some of which involve children as young as 10, would have been the following: an older child repeatedly bashing a smaller one's head off a kitchen press; persistent self-harm by children, together with stated intentions to commit suicide; an assault by two youngsters on a third boy, following which the victim himself was punished; a total of at least 44 separate incidents of violence and aggression - and all this over a three-month period from March to May of this year.
This house of horrors is a State-run children's home. It is supposed to provide safety and sanctuary for those youngsters who, for reasons of abuse or neglect, the State has removed from their own families and taken into care.
These are the most vulnerable of children, deeply traumatised and behaving accordingly, suffering from a range of disabilities, primary among which is the absence of a family who can look after them. They are reliant on the State for their very existence. Figures produced this week indicate that in 2004, more than 5,000 children were being cared for by the State.
Some of them end up in centres such as the one mentioned above, which caters for up to four children and is run by the HSE.
It is in south-west Dublin, and we know about it as a result of a report published this month by the Social Services Inspectorate. While the centre is not named, it is clear that it has been the subject of concern for a number of years.
In 2000, the inspectorate made a total of 44 recommendations for improvement.
By 2005, only 14 had been fully implemented, eight partially implemented and 22 had been completely ignored. The inspectorate made 34 additional recommendations and said it would visit the home again in 2006.
When the inspection team returned in early June of this year, they began assessing the implementation of these recommendations.
However, they state in their report that "it quickly became apparent during the inspection fieldwork that there were grave concerns for the safety and welfare of the young people in the centre". The home was badly managed, they concluded. It had an enormous turnover of staff, with up to 50 individuals having worked there on and off over the previous six months.
Many of them were agency staff, completely unknown to the children.
One boy, whose home had been the centre for five years, was "discharged" with no event or party to mark his departure and no indication as to when he might see his younger brother again.
There had been no consideration of the emotional impact involved in the separation of the two siblings.
Two of the children had threatened to commit suicide, and one was engaged in serious self-harm. The children had complained about their bedrooms being cold and having to sleep on urine-soaked mattresses. They had repeatedly told people how unhappy they were. Their complaints were not taken seriously. A number of staff members had also complained, including some of the agency workers. There was equally little evidence that their concerns had been acted on. The Social Services Inspectorate recommended that the home be shut down and the children relocated. Its report concluded that "the young people were living in an emotionally impoverished and unpredictable environment in a centre that was intended to be their home.
"The experience for the young people was that their medical needs were not met, their education was disrupted, family visits were cancelled, they were subject to inappropriate practice and discontinuities in their placements, there were many occasions when strangers were their sole carers and they were repeatedly exposed to violence and aggression."
The HSE is now moving to find alternative accommodation for the children at this centre, and anticipates that it will be closed within weeks. Further, it must be said that most children in care do not live in such a climate.
According to a range of inspectorate reports over the years, a number of HSE-run children's homes provide good, stable care, with warm and caring relations between staff and children.
However, there is a pattern in several homes of inadequate provision and of recommendations not being implemented.
For instance, the inspectorate pointed earlier this year to increasing evidence of medication being used to control the behaviour of children in some care homes, and instanced one centre where physical restraints were inappropriately used in a routine manner, causing actual harm to the children.
These kinds of incidents, and the years of inaction at the care home described above, seriously challenge the effectiveness of the State's child protection mechanisms.
Combined with reports this week that only 40 per cent of the 6,000 reports of child abuse made in 2004 have so far been fully investigated, the picture for vulnerable children in this country is profoundly grim.