'Unsatisfactory' that review of Kyran Durnin case not published, says Children's Rights Alliance

Vivienne Clarke

The chief executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance, Tanya Ward, has said it was “really unsatisfactory” that an independent review had not been published about what happened to Kyran Durnin.

“It's really unsatisfactory that we don't have an independent review published because we need to know what happened to Kyran. I understand that it's an exceptional event, but it's extremely disturbing that a child was presumed killed and disappeared for two years before anyone realised he was gone,” she told RTÉ radio’s Today with David McCullagh show.

“There's a lot of unanswered questions. But to be honest, it's not unexpected because the priority is justice for Kyran and there is a garda investigation, and it needs to include its work. And it actually is normal, I suppose, when children die and the National Review panel does its reports, if there's a Garda investigation still ongoing, often the reports aren't published.

“There were other reviews that were carried out around the time of Kyran's disappearance, including by Tusla and by its education service as well.

"There may be the same concerns that those reports can't be published because of the Garda investigation, but I do think transparency will be very important for Kyran.”

Ms Ward said it was difficult to comment on the recommendations by the National Review Board, not having seen the report into Kyran’s case.

“Without seeing the basic report, it is hard to understand their origin. But I suppose one thing that jumps out to me is the recommendations around education, and I know it was reported in the media that the school was told that Kyran had gone to Northern Ireland and I can only conclude that some of the recommendations are about that.

“I think one kind of innovation that's happened since Kyran's case came to light is that Tusla has established a children missing in education team.

"And why that's significant is now referrals are going directly to Tusla for children that disappear off the registers, and they are going through each and every case and checking that that child is somewhere engaged in education or social services, or maybe they're in another country. And I think that is very important.

“There's red flags if a child does not show up in school or their early year service.

"Anyone that works in child protection and welfare would say it's one of the things that they worry about if a child has disappeared. But to be honest, it's this complex work because there's a lot of movement of children between the south and north of the country, a lot of movement between the rest of the United Kingdom.

"And you have over five thousand children now in homeless accommodation and overcrowded conditions. So you have to have all these extra systems in place to make sure that the welfare of those children are protected, because they are very vulnerable once they are in homeless accommodation, once they're living in overcrowded conditions, and families are struggling.

"So I do think that's been an important measure.”