THE HSE’S HANDLING of a case in which a father raped and tortured four of his daughters over 18 years will be investigated by an independently chaired panel, the executive has confirmed.

The HSE said its involvement with the family would be examined by the National Review Panel for Serious Incidents. The statement came in response to reports that health authorities first had contact with the family in 2000, although the father was not arrested until 2009.

The father of the family was jailed for life yesterday at the Central Criminal Court in Castlebar, Co Mayo. He is already serving a 14-year sentence for the rape of another daughter, by whom he fathered two children.

Two of the daughters told the court they were tied to a tree in woodland while their father raped them, the Irish Times reports. The victims said that various people knew what their father was doing, but nobody helped them.

According to the Irish Independent, a local health board first came into contact with the family in 2000 after two of the daughters went to police.  However, the girls later withdrew their statements to gardaí and the family later moved away to a different area.

In a statement today, the HSE said:

The HSE’s involvement with the family, who were party to the legal proceedings which concluded today, is being reviewed by the National Review Panel for Serious Incidents established under HIQA Guidance. The review panel is independently chaired by Professor Helen Buckley, School of Social Work, Trinity College Dublin.

Yesterday, justice minister Alan Shatter and children’s minister Frances Fitzgerald spoke of their concern at child abuse allegations going unreported. Minister Fitzgerald said the Government must “strive to ensure” that anyone with suspicions or information about child abuse would come forward to gardaí.

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