Chapter 14 — St. Joseph’s Kilkenny

The period 1978–1990

Sr Ronja also gave evidence. She joined the Sisters of Charity in the mid-1970s. She started in St Joseph’s in 1977 and remained there until 1990. She was a qualified childcare worker. Sr Ronja worked in St Joseph’s initially and, in 1981, she became House Parent in a group home known as Avondale, which catered for 15 children aged 2 to 15 years. She reported directly to Sr Astrid and, in the beginning, she only had one live-in staff member, Barbara Brady,35 who was a tireless worker.

Sr Ronja tried to ensure that the children in her group home were properly fed, clothed and attended school. She enforced discipline by occasionally slapping the younger children on the backside with an open hand and sending them to their rooms. With the older children, she would ground them from a disco or swimming.

Sr Astrid gave evidence that she witnessed Sr Ronja physically punishing a pupil. Sr Ronja did not remember this occasion, although she did remember having to slap the boy once for not attending school and forging notes of excuse. Sr Astrid said in her Garda statement that she recalled that some of the children complained to her that Sr Ronja was cruel to them. She said that, one day, Sr Ronja had a small boy in the convent parlour. She recalled hearing the boy screaming because Sr Ronja was beating him. She said that Sr Ronja was reprimanded for that.

General conclusions

General conclusions 1. The Sisters of Charity were progressive in their approach and unique among Congregations in sending their members to the UK to undergo courses in childcare and, as a result, they split up the Institution into separate units, which worked much better than the large unitary institutions. 2. Notwithstanding the favourable evidence about this Institution, children were severely physically punished and treated unsympathetically by some of the care staff, which continued into later years. Even when complaints were made, no action was taken by management to protect the children. 3. Differential treatment between the units is a major criticism of the Institution. The quality of care depended on which unit the child was placed in. The blue unit was run by Sr Astrid, the Resident Manager, and the girls in it received the most favourable treatment, according to the evidence. This Sister was very kind and there was little or no corporal punishment, and the girls in her group considered themselves, and were considered, to be the lucky ones. 4. No lessons were learned from the Jacobs case at the time, and no proper system of record keeping or monitoring was introduced. In its Submissions, the Congregation did not address the serious implications of this case. The apology referred only to the two convicted abusers and, even then, no Congregational responsibility was acknowledged. 5. Sr Astrid eventually removed Mr Pleece and, later, Mr Tade after complaints were made to her about them. However, she did not face up to what had happened to the children. She failed in her duty to provide accurate information to other bodies and thereby exposed other children to the risk of abuse.