Monageer 'cover-up' claim

Labour has this morning alleged a cover-up over the publication of a report into the deaths of the Dunne family in Monageer, Co Wexford.

Adrian (29) and Ciara Dunne (24) were found dead, along with their children Leanne (5) and Shania (3), at their home in Monageer in April 2007. The family came to the attention of gardaí and social workers shortly before their deaths after the family made funeral arrangements for the couple and their two children.

An edited report, published yesterday, criticised the absence of a comprehensive service to deal with emergency cases outside of office hours.

Speaking during leaders' questions in the Dáil this morning, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore pointed out that pages of the report were simply blacked out.

"I've heard of a report being a whitewash, but this is more of a case of a blackwash. Extraordinarily, and I've never seen this in an official report before, even the recommendations are blacked out."

Mr Gilmore called on the Taoiseach to make the full report available through a Dáil committee that could act under House privilege and questioned how the report's recommendations could be acted on when they were blacked out. Noting the Government had the report since last October, he asked which of the recommendations had been acted on.

Responding, Taoiseach Brian Cowen, said the blacking out was for legal reasons and that the full report had been seen by the Ministers for health and children. "It is important to point out not for the purpose of censoring the report that these redactions took place . . . I want to make it clear that it's for legal reasons only that the redactions are there."

Mr Cowen said the HSE chief executive would be able to see report in full and that he was not aware a Dáil committee would be "covered by privilege to same degree". Amid heckling from the Opposition benches, Mr Cowen said: "I just want to answer the question, if I may, without interruption . . . there can't be mass publication of report, that's the legal advice we have."

The Taoiseach said an out-of-hours service for children at extreme risk would be in place from June of this year. However, Mr Gilmore said he was "extremely disappointed" with the Taoiseach's reply.

"We need to know what went wrong here. It's not a matter of curiosity, its a matter of learning lessons so this tragedy does not occur again," he said. Mr Gilmore repeated that the full report could be brought to committee under normal privilege of the House.

"I have never seen a report where the recommendations were blacked out. How can we learn from a report when the recommendations are blanked out. . . this is a cover-up of some kind, it is not acceptable and should be put right.

"We need to know what went wrong here, Taoiseach, what went astray," Mr Gilmore told the House.

Fine Gael TD Dan Neville, who is chairman of an Oireachtas Sub-Committee on suicide issues, said local psychiatric services should have been alerted as soon as authorities had concerns for the welfare for the family.

A number of TDs called for an urgent Dáil debate on the report findings, and Mr Cowen has asked party whips to discuss a suitable time for a prompt debate.