Chapter 1 — Department of Education

Part 2 The structure of the Department of Education

Mr R MacConchradha, a Higher Executive Officer in prisons administration but formerly in the Department of Education, wrote on 20th April 1968 to Mr McCarthy, his superior in the Department for Justice. Mr MacConchradha expresses his views frankly: Even at the risk of breaking confidence, may I say that the Industrial School system has been centrally administrated in a very plodding way, with little sympathetic involvement or thought for the children. Finances have been ungenerous for years and what forward thinking there was, came from individuals in the conducting communities. The lot of the children, especially the boys, is very sad and there is an unbelievably entrenched ‘status quo’ to be overcome, not least in the Department of Education, if there is to be any change for the better.

Further evidence of the unimportance assigned to this field is the lack of written information regarding its role within the Department; for instance: Despite a number of institutional histories of the Department of Education, to date none have explored the role of the Department in relation to reformatory and Industrial Schools. Nor does O’Connor, a former secretary of the Department of Education mention reformatory or industrial schools in his personal reflections on his role in that Department between 1957 and 1968. Likewise renewed histories of the Department of Local Government and Public Health and from 1947, onwards the Department of Health (now Health and Children) and Department of Local Government (now Environmental and Local Government), do not explore the child welfare dimension of their work.

However following the publication of the Kennedy Report, the RISB became the fulcrum for instituting the changes recommended in the Report and it underwent restructuring. The section was renamed ‘Special Education (2)’ in 1972 and a review of the staffing structure in the Special Education Section was undertaken in November 1973. The review concluded that the staffing situation was inadequate and that the inspection system was hampered by this staff shortage. In 1975, the was the post of Child Care Advisor was created.

In general, the Department of Education was regarded as a conservative Department producing little by way of policy. Even on the wider fronts of primary and secondary education, its main concern lay with curricular content rather than wider social justice issues, such as what today would be called access to education. Further, the Department ‘enjoyed a reputation for secrecy’ and this secrecy would have had the effect of rendering it difficult for any countervailing pressure to that of the Church, even had there been any, to assert itself.

In the case of Reformatory and Industrial Schools the conservative tendency was exacerbated by the fact that the unit with full-time responsibility for the schools was located at such a low level in the Department hierarchy.

The unit did not initiate reform and did not confront the vested interests that reform would have stirred up.

The Department had the power of fixing the capitation fee and in theory this power gave it considerable control over the institutions However, the Department did not use such increases as an opportunity to impose changes of policy on the schools. When the Department succeeded in providing increased funding for the schools, it communicated in non-specific terms its wish to see improvements made in the standard of care provided to the children in the schools. For instance the Departmental circulars to Resident Managers announcing the increases in 1947, 1951, 1952 and 1958 stated the Minister’s expectation that, with the improved financial position, schools would effect, without delay, substantial improvements in the standard of diet, clothing and maintenance of the children. There is no evidence to show that these broad admonitions were followed up by attempts to verify that these substantial improvements had actually materialised. Few circulars were as specific as the following (Circular 1/1952 (10th March 1952)): The Minister trusts that consequent on the improvements in the financial position of the schools as a result of the increase of 5/- weekly in 1951 and of this increase of 6/- weekly in the amount of the Capitation Grants that the Managers of the Schools will be in a position to effect substantial all round improvements where necessary. Each child should get as a minimum one pint of milk daily, the full ration of butter and sugar, and 4 to 6 ozs of meat at each meal at which meat is served. It is desirable, that the children’s breakfast should include an egg, sausage, rasher, tomato or other suitable relish and that the dinner should be a substantial meal consisting of soup (where practicable), meat, vegetables (including potatoes) to be followed by a dessert such as pudding, jelly stewed or raw fruit, cereal.

The circular met a polite but prompt rebuff in the form of a message from a meeting of the Managers’ Association (letter from Chairman to Department, 31st March 1952), which said that, given the prices, this ‘recommendation’ was not ‘practical’. Indeed as the Department of Education submitted; Evidence provided to the Commission by Mr Granville also underlines the dominant role that school authorities continued to play [into the 1980s] in the operation of residential homes and special schools post-Kennedy. The religious orders, it is clear, remained the ultimate decision-makers.

The real authority lay with the schools and the religious, because they owned and managed the institutions, and their constant claim was that the State under-resourced the Congregations in carrying out the State’s duty. One example of what a later generation would call ‘agency capture’, where a regulatory body is effectively controlled by the body it is supposed to regulate, may be seen in the way in which the Resident Managers’ Association looked confidently to the Department to champion them against third-party criticisms. For instance, the Association asked to meet the Minister for Education to discuss: (2) The extract, from Circular Letter No. 7/52 issued by the Department of Health, which reads — ‘It is generally agreed that the institution is a bad substitute for the normal home life for children. It is recognised in the existing Regulations, which prescribe that Public Assistance Authorities shall not send a child to a certified school if the child can be suitably boarded out. Every effort should therefore be made to have children placed in suitable foster homes before having recourse to their maintenance in an institution.’ (3) The uncalled for and offensive remarks regarding Industrial and Reformatory Schools made by some District Justices and published in the newspapers.

In response to this letter the Minister ‘promised to do everything he could to help these Schools’.

The schools’ control over the Department can be seen in the way decisions were made in the early 1950s about mixing offenders and non-offenders in Industrial Schools. The question whether children who had been convicted of offending seriously or repeatedly should live in the same school as those in need of care should have been a key policy issue for the Department of Education.

What happened in practice was that the matter was decided by the Christian Brothers. In a letter to the Minister of Education dated 19th March 1954, the Provincial advised the Minister for Education that, in future, Letterfrack, County Galway, would be reserved for boys who were offenders; whilst the Christian Brother Industrial Schools at Artane, Glin, Tralee and Salthill would no longer accept boys who were offenders.

Two District Justices expressed opposition to this move. In a letter dated 30th July 1954, District Justice J J O’Hora advised the Secretary of the Department that the arrangement involving Letterfrack would cause serious difficulties for the Children’s Court in Limerick. The Justice requested that the Minister make representations to the Brother Provincial of the Christian Brothers to have either Glin or Tralee appointed for the reception of cases in which offences had been proved. However the Department had earlier consulted with the Christian Brothers requesting that it reconsider its decision regarding Letterfrack but the Order’s position remained unchanged.

Secondly, District Justice McCarthy, Children’s Court Judge in Dublin from 1941-57, stated in 1954 in open court, that he would not be prepared to send to Letterfrack the type of boy for whom the school was supposed to be reserved henceforth, until such time as the ‘non-offenders’ at present in the school were transferred to other schools. As a result, a conference was convened on 14th May 1954 and, attended by the District Justice, the Department’s Secretary and Assistant Secretary (Micheal O’Siocfradha) and Br O’Hanluain, the Provincial of the Order. The compromise reached was that the Manger of Letterfrack would transfer all the boys sent by local authorities and a number of non-offenders committed by the courts until the total number at Letterfrack was 85. They would be sent to Salthill, mainly, and to Artane and other schools.

These diverse opinions illustrate that the question of whether offenders and non-offenders should be held in the same institution was an issue on which informed opinion could differ. The Department ought to have developed a considered policy in consultation with the schools and ought then to have ensured that the schools observed it. Instead, it appears to have simply allowed the question to be decided by the Congregation. For example, in 1954 the Department noted resignedly: The Provincial (of the Christian Brothers) has informed the Department that his Council have decided to introduce into the Industrial Schools conducted by their congregation a measure of segregation. They have, accordingly, arranged that the Industrial School in Letterfrack is to be reserved for boys brought before the court and found guilty of an offence. All such boys, if committed to an industrial school will not now be accepted into their schools by the resident managers of the Artane, Salthill, Tralee and Glin Industrial School. The Industrial Schools for senior boys at Upton, Clonmel and Greenmount [non-Christian Brother School] will continue to accept boys as heretofore.