I have lived in Wexford most of my life, and have worked in child protection for the South Eastern HSE sporadically. I called friends in the social service offices and contacts within the gardai, but no one would talk about the Dunnes. The firewalls had come down. It seemed that, in the immediate wake of the tragedy, I would have to suffice with the slow, drip-feed of information the rest of the media were getting.

The picture that began to form, as Monday evening descended and the news programmes started to cover the story in earnest, was like something from a James Ellroy novel.

Blind love for their children Adrian and Ciara Dunne were apparently deeply in love and doting parents to two little girls. There were, of course, mitigating factors: both lived with visual impairments . . . Adrian, profoundly so. He had also just lost a beloved brother through suicide, and his father had died a year ago. We heard of the bizarre trip to a local funeral home; learned about a visit from a worried priest and heard descriptions of futile, drive-by patrols by the gardai. Finally, there was the macabre discovery on Monday morning. It seemed that something had gone badly wrong for the Dunnes, and that matters had escalated rapidly.

This element puzzled me more than anything else. Looking back over some of the comparable stories in Ireland's recent history . . . Sharon Grace, Christopher Crowley, or Stephen Byrne . . . we see a series of clear signposts leading to the dreadful climax. Depression is something that is difficult to hide from those close to you, and it usually alters behaviour dramatically. Speaking to people who knew the Dunnes, and listening to the comments from Adrian's family, it seems that, up until Friday afternoon, when the fateful visit to the undertakers was made, everything was perfectly normal.

Had Adrian and Ciara suddenly become afraid?

Were they worried that, as Ciara's disability became more severe, the children could be taken from them?

The commentary and buck-passing from those in positions of power and authority began on Tuesday morning. By the time Six-One news was broadcast, we were all familiar with the line the government, the managers of the HSE and representatives from the Garda press office were taking;

protocol, as it exists at present, was followed. The Dunne family did not look for help from any statutory or voluntary agency; out of hours care was brought into play, to advise the gardai of the options available to them and a member of the clergy was asked to visit (an individual with no training in psychiatric care) because the gardai felt he would be less threatening to the family.

No one admitted that the responses were inadequate, no one apologised for the fact that, more than two years after the deaths of Sharon Grace and her two daughters, the promised out-of-hours service provision had still not come online, and no one guaranteed that, as a matter of urgency, such services would be put in place to prevent any further tragedies.

On Wednesday, a friend who works in social services in the southeast finally agreed to talk to me, on the condition that I not include her name in any articles. She was, understandably, saddened and angry at the way she and her colleagues had been represented in the media, and wished to set the record straight: "In Wexford, we have been asking for out-of-hours services to be put in place for the past 20 years. Every single person working in social services in Wexford is painfully aware of the need for weekend or night-time cover, but the resources have, as yet, not been put brought online.

There is not a person working on any of the teams in Wexford county who would have refused to make a visit to that house on Friday evening, if asked to go. No one was asked. That's the point."

Out-of-hours service Declan Coogan, press officer for the Irish Association of Social Workers, echoed this sentiment:

"Last Friday, purely by coincidence, we had our AGM, and a motion was passed that we would lobby for an out-of-hours service, not just for the southeast, but for the entire country. The kind of model we're proposing would involve an on-call multi-disciplinary team, encompassing social workers, mental-health professionals and childcare workers. Everyone wants this."

Coogan stressed that, despite what people might think, social workers and their colleagues are regularly still at work after hours, if the case demands it. "Social workers do not clock off at five o'clock in the evening. Every night of the week there are social workers still out there, working with children and families long into the hours of the night, if that is what the case requires. We just don't make a song and dance about it."

The event that, for me, best illustrated the profound impact of what happened in Monageer took place last Thurday. I came upon my eight-year-old daughter and a group of her friends gathered around the local newspaper in our back garden.

They were pouring over the myriad pages covering the incident, looking at the photographs and reading some of the less in-depth articles. These children were able to make the comparison between Leanne Dunne and a five-year-old child on our street who they often play with, and feel sadness at the unnecessary loss. I was struck by the fact that they didn't even look for an explanation as to why this awful thing had happened, seeming to accept that, sometimes, such occurrences are visited upon us. As an adult, and someone who has dedicated his life to working with children and families in crisis, I wish I could be as accepting.

Shane Dunphy is a child protection worker and lecturer. He is the author of Last Ditch House