CAMHS campaigner is right to demand Taoiseach’s apology

When a State service creates a scandal of such shocking significance as that caused by the CAMHS service in Kerry, then the least everybody is entitled to expect is a meaningful expression of sorrow by the person from whom such an apology has most meaning.

In this country, that’s the Taoiseach, our head of government, who is ultimately responsible as chair of the Executive Board charged with running the country on behalf of us all.

Which is why survivor David Godfrey is absolutely correct to insist that Taoiseach Micheál Martin apologises, with the full weight of that office, for the terrible abuses visited on hundreds of Kerry children and teenagers by a dangerous and woefully inadequate CAMHS service, as evidenced in the Sean Maskey report on South Kerry in 2022 and again in another report about North Kerry in 2026.

Mr Godfrey is due to meet the Taoiseach before the end of the month. And, quite rightly, he’s determined to make absolutely clear his most basic demand – a State apology with no ifs, buts or maybes.

Sadly, it’s been our experience in this country over the past three decades or more, that successive Governments have been unwilling, even in the face of clear State failures – as in the case of CAMHS – to take the initiative and apologise. This is despite the urgent demands of justice that such apologies must be made.

The CAMHS scandal was unconscionable. Children and young people were harmed by a service that was supposed to help them, but didn’t. They were let down and damaged, some seriously. So were their families and friends.

When Taoiseach Martin meets Mr Godfrey, he has an opportunity to show that the State can and will do the right thing. He must give a formal apology; he must show that sorry isn’t, any longer, the hardest word.