Micheál Martin has said the tragic and “shocking, shocking” McGinley child killings “hit the country hard”.
The Taoiseach also said the State needs to act and improve psychiatric services so that other families in crisis can get the help they need, to prevent this type of tragedy happening again.
Earlier this week Deirdre Morley was found not guilty by reason of insanity of the murder of her three young children, Conor, Darragh and Carla, whom she killed.
Mr Martin was speaking to reporters outside Government Buildings on Friday evening.
He said: “I think anybody who saw the Prime Time interview (with the Morley children’s father, Andrew McGinley) last evening found it very heart-rendering and very, very difficult.
“So I think there are two elements to it, I think we need to understand more around the psychiatry of this and I will engage with the Minister for Health and the HSE in terms of both the understanding of the clinical side of this, the clinician’s perspective, but also the need for advocacy, the need for family inclusion in terms of illness and psychiatric illness as well.
Mr Martin added: “Our sympathies go out to the family as well, it’s such a shocking, shocking event that I think has hit the nation hard.
“I think we need to do everything we can to respond to this in an intelligent, sensitive way that can try and prevent such a very, very sad thing happening again in the future.”
