- Volume 1
- Volume 2
-
Volume 3
- Introduction
- Methodology
- Social and demographic profile of witnesses
- Circumstances of admission
- Family contact
- Everyday life experiences (male witnesses)
- Record of abuse (male witnesses)
- Everyday life experiences (female witnesses)
- Record of abuse (female witnesses)
- Positive memories and experiences
- Current circumstances
- Introduction to Part 2
- Special needs schools and residential services
- Children’s Homes
- Foster care
- Hospitals
- Primary and second-level schools
- Residential Laundries, Novitiates, Hostels and other settings
- Concluding comments
- Volume 4
Chapter 4 — Circumstances of admission
BackAge when discharged
Five hundred and fifty eight (558) witnesses (71%) left the School system between the ages of 14 and 16 years. Of those, 319 witnesses (40%), 130 male (31%) and 189 female (50%), reported being discharged when they were 16 years old. A further 158 witnesses (20%) were discharged up to 10 years later. Forty eight (48) of those witnesses, six male and 42 female, reported being kept on to work either within the School or for an individual or a service associated with the School.
Sixty nine (69) witnesses, 19 male and 50 female, who remained in the School system after their 16th birthday, had been in institutional care since they were aged three years or younger and were regarded as orphans, having no known family contact. Thirty eight (38) male witnesses who were discharged over the age of 16 years were admitted under Court Orders that permitted their detention until they were 18 years old. Sixteen (16) witnesses, eight male and eight female, remained residents in the School after their 16th birthday to continue secondary education.7
The next five chapters of the Report summarise the evidence provided by witnesses regarding family contact, everyday experiences and abuse while in the Schools.
Footnotes
- For example: as witness evidence is presented according to the decade of discharge, a witness who spent 12 years in a school and was discharged in 1962 will have been included in the 1960s cohort although the majority of that witness’s experience will relate to the 1950s.
- The age of criminal responsibility under the Children Act, 1908 was seven years. The age was raised to 12 years by section 52 of the Children Act, 2001. This was subsequently amended by section 129 of the Criminal Justice Act, 2006 which confined the power to bring criminal proceedings against children to those aged 12 and older with certain exceptions.
- For reasons of confidentiality details regarding the provisions governing these admissions cannot be specified.
- Section 133(17) of the Children Act, 1908.
- Section 58(1)(b) of the Children Act, 1908.
- Section 58(1)(a) of the Children Act, 1908.
- With permission from the Department of Education and the consent of the parent(s) or guardian, detention could be extended beyond the residents’ sixteenth birthday (but not beyond their seventeenth birthday) for the purpose of further education or training. See section 12 of the Children Act, 1941.