A senior Tusla manager has been struck off the social workers’ professional register by the High Court over his handling of what a judge was told was a catastrophic error leading to false sexual abuse allegations against Sgt Maurice McCabe.
Gerard Lowry was the Cavan-Monaghan Tusla area manager who failed to pick up on the error that led to the false allegation. He also failed to respond or act when it was first brought to his attention, the court heard.
A second social worker, who was a team leader in the case, was suspended from the social workers’ register over her failures related to the same case.
She cannot be named after Mr Justice Michéal P O’Higgins said he was satisfied, following submissions, that she should be anonymised on health and constitutional grounds in line with established legal principles.
The court heard both she and Mr Lowry have since retired from Tusla and both did not contest the High Court hearings on Monday.
JP McDowell, solicitor for the Health and Social Care Professionals Council (HSCPC), which regulates the profession of social workers, said that in 2013, a girl who became known as Ms D made repeated references to inappropriate behaviour on the part of Sgt McCabe with the result that Tusla was notified.
Unfortunately, Mr McDowell said, when the counsellor who drew up the formal notification of the allegation did so, she used a template which related to another client and which led to a merging of documents.
It meant the report produced in relation to Sgt McCabe falsely contained a reference to “digital vaginal penetration”. This was a lot more serious than the matters Ms D had discussed with the counsellor, Mr McDowell said.
The counsellor later realised she had made a mistake and reported it to Tusla requesting that he correct and amend the report. However, Mr McDowell said, there was no response.
Tusla sent an amended correction to the gardaí and at that stage it should have been clear from a review of the file that there had been an error but the material relating to the false allegation remained on file.
It was considered again by Tusla in 2015 both by the team leader and by Mr Lowry but was again not picked up on, Mr McDowell said.
As a result of the false allegation, what is known as a “bar letter” was sent to Sgt McCabe who at this stage was a public figure over his highlighting of the issue of penalty points.
Sgt McCabe’s solicitors sent a robust response to Tusla which caused the team leader to review the file. She then notified Mr Lowry of the error.
It was not until 2016 that an apology was issued to Sgt McCabe but there was no accompanying explanation as to how the mistake had occurred, Mr McDowell said.
As a result of these matters later surfacing at the Disclosures Tribunal, a HSCPC professional practice committee conducted an inquiry and found Mr Lowry guilty of poor professional performance “at the highest end of the spectrum”, Mr McDowell said.
Central to the findings against him were that he failed to take appropriate steps to ensure the inaccurate records were removed from Sgt McCabe’s file and that he failed to provide an explanation when the apology was given.
In relation to the team leader, Mr McDowell said the professional conduct committee found she failed to adequately review the file and after becoming aware failed to take steps to prevent the “bar letter” being issued.
This amounted to poor professional performance at the serious end of the spectrum and the proliferation of seriously false information and lack of professionalism was “catastrophic and devastating” for Sgt McCabe, the committee found.
Mr Justice O’Higgins said he could see no good reason for not confirming the HSCPC recommendation cancelling Mr Lowry’s registration and prohibiting him from applying to re-register for five years.
The judge also confirmed the 18-month suspension penalty against the team leader although the court was told she had retired on health grounds.
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