By Rebecca Black and James Ward, PA
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has described an interview given by a Dublin man whose wife was found not guilty of murdering their three children by reason of insanity as “very heart-rending”.
Deirdre Morley (44) was accused of murdering sons Conor McGinley (9) and Darragh McGinley (7), and daughter Carla McGinley (3) by smothering them at their home on January 24th last year.
Andrew McGinley spoke out hours after the verdict at the Central Criminal Court on Thursday, calling for a full investigation into her mental health care.
“We believe that an inclusive investigation can only serve to inform clinicians in their practice and therefore avoid tragedies like ours happening again,” he said.
“It is too late for us but I do not want to see another grieving parent speaking in the future about the same exclusion after a similar catastrophic loss.”
On Friday, Mr Martin pledged to engage with the Minister for Health and the HSE over the matter.
“I think we need to understand more on the psychiatry of this and, yes, I will engage with the Minister for Health and with the HSE in terms of both understanding the clinical side of this, but also the need for advocacy, the need for family inclusion in terms of illness and psychiatric illness,” he told reporters in Dublin.
“Our heart goes out to the family – such a shocking, shocking event – and I think that’s hit the nation hard and I think we need to do everything we can to respond to this in an intelligent, sensitive way, that can try and prevent such very, very sad events into the future.”
