The HSE has apologised to the Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan, over the suspension of her investigation earlier this week into the handling of the child protection audit.
In a statement, the HSE said it had today discovered an “administrative error” that led to a full file on the investigation not being forwarded to the Ombudsman by its solicitors.
Ms Logan said on Wednesday she had suspended her office's investigation into the handling of the Child Protection Audit of the Catholic Church Dioceses by the HSE and the Department of Health.
She said she was taking the action due to the HSE’s failure to “genuinely cooperate” with the process.
The HSE said tonight: “Following a meeting with officials in the office of the Ombudsman for Children today, we discovered an administrative error by our solicitors,
BCM Hanby Wallace, meant that despite our full commitment to cooperating fully with the Ombudsman in this case, the full file in relation to this investigation was not sent to the Ombudsman last week as requested by the HSE.”
It said BCM Hanby Wallace had “accepted responsibility for the error and had issued an apology to the Ombudsman and to the HSE for this “serious error which has placed its client and the Ombudsman in a difficult position”.
“The HSE can confirm that the file was transferred to the Ombudsman for Children immediately following today’s meeting. The HSE is pleased to have this issue resolved and hopes that the Ombudsman’s investigation can resume at the earliest opportunity.”
The HSE said it had also apologised to the Ombudsman “for any inconvenience caused and reiterated our commitment to ensuring that the errors such as this do not occur again”.
It also assured Ms Logan’s office today that it had been “committed to this process from the outset, we remain committed to it, and that there was no issue of non-cooperation on the part of the HSE”.