As a nation, we have had a terrible shock. The death of a young family of four has delivered a universal blow to the system. On first hearing the news, it was unbearable and nauseating to think about the unnecessary deaths, particularly of two children.

We had a collective reaction, borne out through the media and public feedback through phone-in shows. Initially, the predictable happened: who can we blame? It is easier for us to cope with such a tragedy if we can lay the blame at the door of an individual or organisation. But while the apportioning of blame began immediately, it needed to be shifted and revisited a number of times during the week as a fuller picture emerged.

The finger was first pointed at the gardai and the HSE. They did nothing, was the universal cry. But as the week progressed and more details emerged, that sentiment changed and the focus turned to Adrian and Ciara Dunne. The couple are gone and can't tell us what happened in their house in Co Wexford before they died alongside their children. But that did not stop one tabloid paper referring to Adrian as a "deranged blind man".

As the week went on, there was an allegation made that his wife, Ciara, colluded with him in a suicide pact.

When this emerged, some of the tabloid media railed against Ciara, "Mother KILLED her kids" one headline screamed. The complete facts of the case are, as yet, unclear and the extent of Ciara Dunne's complicity in the events of last weekend may never be known. But the dangerous practise of hunting for someone who will accept the blame continues.

Is it easier for us to cope with thinking that Adrian acted alone? We can better deal with the idea of a man who takes the lives of his family by condemning his acts as being those of a "madman". In other recent cases where women have killed their children along with themselves the consensus has been that she must have been desperate, at the end of her tether and in some way, 'driven' to take a drastic and irreversible measure.

When a man does it, we see it differently and cast him as 'evil' and 'deranged'.

So, now that we have been told that both Adrian and Ciara may have been involved, do we feel compassion for them or do we condemn them both?

Confusion over how to deal with these new details has replaced the outrage, sadness and anger that initially formed our reaction to the deaths of the Dunne family.

Perhaps for the agencies involved, whose actions in this case were obviously lacking, it would be a convenient "out" if we could write the tragedy off as the work of two people who were psychologically disturbed.

But what real value is it to anyone to apportion blame? What does it matter whether Adrian Dunne acted alone or whether some pact was made with his wife Ciara? Blaming either one or both of them will not bring the Dunne family back. Furthermore, hastily pointing the finger at the agencies involved in dealing with them prior to their deaths does no good either.

What does matter, once we get over our sadness and our shock, is that we learn from it. When the alarm was raised by the funeral directors who spoke to Adrian Dunne, the machinery of the state did not crank into action to avert the impending tragedy.

That should be the focus of the aftermath . . . not whether Adrian coerced Ciara or whether they were complicit in a pact to die and take their children with them. The focus of our collective energy should be to hope that a system should be put in place to stop such a dreadful thing happening again.