Chapter 1 — Department of Education

Part 5 The inspection system

In Rathdrum in December 1947 a child of three was put in to a very hot bath and died a few days later from his injuries. Dr McCabe was sent to inquire and discovered that at the time the victim was in the care of a 14½-year-old laundry maid. The school was inadequately staffed, partly because the 14 nuns in the Rathdrum Convent were old and incapable. The next month Dr McCabe returned to see what improvements had been made and wrote the following internal report: I informed the Resident Manager that I did not consider she had sufficient staff at present and that she should employ at least two extra helpers immediately, one religious if possible and the other a capable woman with experience of children. She told me she accepted this suggestion and would try to meet my requirements. She then informed me that she expected a castigation since the school had been ‘in the news’ so often. I told her that the most recent episode amounted, in my opinion to criminal negligence... I then informed her that I had given her one last chance to remedy her deficiencies and that if the school had any further complaints, which on investigation proved to be true that I would ask for her removal. Also I informed her that I would like to see the Mother-General in Carysfort and ask her aid in insisting on this Resident Manager carrying out her duties properly. One facet of the resident manager I do not like is that she is inclined to be parsimonious and grasping about money and again on this occasion she said the grant was not adequate. I told her not to talk nonsense that schools catering for big boys 10-16 years could very well manage and that these boys eat far more than little boys and required more clothes! I consider it would be well to follow up my visit with a letter insisting on my suggestions being carried out and warning the resident manager that if she cannot cope with the situation she will have to be replaced.

In fact, the letter of 25th February from the Department to the Manager, which was issued on the basis of this internal report, recommended an increase of two staff but did not repeat any of the condemnations or threats that, according to Dr McCabe’s memo of 14th February, she had made orally. These oral directions from Dr McCabe as to how the school should be improved were unusually specific.

An earlier visit to Rathdrum in October 1944 by the general inspector gave rise to an internal memo to the Assistant Secretary, prepared as part of the discussion as to whether to dismiss the Resident Manager (which did not in fact happen): Since I was appointed to this branch I have frequently drawn attention to the fact that children in industrial schools are, in general, not properly fed...This is a serious indictment of the system of management of industrial schools by nuns. If the children’s parents subjected them to semi-starvation and lack of proper clothing and attention from which they suffer in some industrial schools, the parents would be prosecuted. No laywoman, for instance could treat children as the former resident manager of Lenaboy did and escape punishment. Evidence is not wanting that the public have a shrewd idea of the conditions in many of these schools and that the public conscience is stirring. Last February for instance, the Minister for Local Government and Public Health sent the Minister the following extract from a letter which he had received from Deputy B Butler: — ‘A strong supporter of ours in the Ranelagh area – I think he is a sort of Probation Officer – asked me on Monday night to pass on the hint to you that the Labour Party are about to make capital out of the fact that the children in industrial schools are being literally starved through stoppage of supplies of oaten-meal and meat. I don’t think this can be so, but he appeared very earnest and insistent.’ Dr McCabe and myself have conducted a strenuous campaign against this semi-starvation. On her inspections she has attacked it in every school where she found it ... I have followed up her reports in all such cases with official letters, generally in strong terms. We have before us the task of uprooting the old idea that industrial school children are a class apart who have not the same human needs and rights as other children. There may have been something to this idea in the last century, but the present position is that from a material point of view, running an industrial school on an aggregate grant of about 18s/3d per head per week is a business proposition and the community should get value for its money.

Nothing more was heard of the matter.

Another example of an effective inspection is described in an internal memo of 2nd December 1944 from Dr McCabe to the Assistant Secretary: We arrived unexpectedly a short time before 12 and went straight to the refectory where the dinner was set out. Dinner consisted of one big slice of bread and jam for most of the children who come in and make short work of the bread together with a tin cupful of milk (about half a pint). We were told that the rice which, according to the dietary on the wall, should have been issued, did not arrive from Cork. I took the whole up fairly strongly with the Resident Manger. She kept up appearances for a while and then confessed to me that everything I said was true that things were worse even than I thought. One of her remarks was that she thought the children so badly nourished that their little legs were hardly able to carry them and that she had warned her authorities that they would lose their certificate. At their suggestion I sent for the Revd Mother, and the secretary and myself warned her in strong terms that the situation which had existed there could not be tolerated any further. I pointed out that the two other schools run by the Order in Cork-Cobh and Kinsale – were at the very top of the list in the matter of food whereas Passage West had become a kind of a bye-word. The Revd. Mother assured us that arrangements had been made to bring the diet fully up to the required standard and that there would, in future, be no cause for complaint.

A letter from the Department to the Provincial of St Joseph’s Clonmel in December 1944 began by thanking the Provincial for substituting a younger Manager at the behest of the Department and went on to describe conditions of considerable squalor: Incidentally, I feel bound to say a word in defence of the inspectorial system. Admittedly an inspector who visits a school like yours for one day in the year cannot get a full and complete picture of the manner in which it is conducted. All we claim is that a lady like Dr. McCabe, who spends all her time at this work, acquires the ability to get a picture satisfactory as a result of her reports. The system has its faults but is there a better alternative? Dr. McCabe suggests that the dormitories should be washed out at least once each month, and that one sheet should be changed on each bed weekly. The sanitary annexe should be cleaned each day, and whitewashed and pointed as required. (On the occasion of her visit it was very dirty and the walls were defiled with excrement.) The trouble here and in kindred matters is, in her opinion, due to the failure of the widow and daughter in charge to do their work properly. Apparently they got a lot of help from the boys before the School was recognised as a national school. The boy’s time is now more fully occupied by literary and trade training and apparently the cleaners have been letting things slide.

The Kennedy Report was especially critical of the inspection system. Criticism was made concerning the inspectors’ failure to pay attention to the circumstances of individual children, the piecemeal character of the inspections and the missed opportunities. Its verdict was damning though it should perhaps be noted that Kennedy was reporting at a time when for personnel reasons the inspection system was in a trough. The Report was made between the retirement of Dr McCabe in the mid 1960s and the appointment of Mr Granville in the mid 1970s, in other words a period when the Department did not have an inspector with professional expertise. The Report concluded: The system of inspection has, so far as we can judge, been totally ineffective. In other countries the Inspectorate acts as a link between those in the field and those in central authority. In this way the system ensures that no one school or centre is working in isolation, unaware of development in other regions. This has not been the position here. There is only one Inspector and he is, in fact, the Administrative head of the RISB of that Department. His time is, primarily, taken up with the administration of his Branch rather than the inspection of the schools. We are satisfied that the statutory obligation to inspect these schools at least once a year has not always been fulfilled but, even if it had, this would not have been sufficient. There must, in addition, be meetings where ideas are exchanged and discussed – they should not be merely fault-finding missions. We have been advised by those in other countries who operate such a system that, on the basis of the figures given of those at present in residential care, [a much lower figure than formerly] approximately five or six Inspectors would be required to operate a proper inspectorate based on a central authority. In this way, every school or Residential Home could be visited frequently. Every child’s case history could be periodically reviewed. These visits might be made to inspect a particular aspect of the running of the home – on other occasions they could be 24-hour visits to study the ordinary routine of the home. Faults, grievances, suggestions and requests could be examined in a general context and the inevitable result would be an overall and continuing improvement in the system.

One of the results of the Kennedy Report was an overhaul of the inspection system and the appointment of Mr Graham Granville as Child Care Advisor in 1976. The difference between the previous inspection system and the post-Kennedy system was that the new Child Care Advisor’s role was to inspect the schools while focusing on the individual child rather than the institution. Prior to Mr Granville’s appointment, inspectors had adhered to a standardised checklist of conditions, but in 1976 a new form was introduced. This new basis for assessment was a departure from the old thinking and included enquiries into psychological services and individual child assessment. The welfare of the child was paramount. Mr Granville’s inspection reports also referred to medical aspects of each school ensuring that appropriate health and medical services were available.

The widespread underfeeding of children was of particular concern to Dr McCabe, who disagreed with the Cussen Report’s findings of 1936 that had described the diet of these children as ‘on the whole adequate.’ Dr McCabe instituted a system of revised diet scales, nutritional education and comprehensive medical charts recording the weight and height of each child, which she used as evidence of underfeeding in the schools. In a letter sent from the Department of Education to the Department of Finance, recognition is given to the value of correct medical records and stated that these charts ‘brought about a marked improvement’.

The Department did try to address the near-starvation level of diet during World War II. An attempt at serious thinking is shown in a letter of 13th January 1945 from the Assistant Secretary in the Department to the Minister for Finance. The Medical Inspector has stated time and again that the general standard of nutrition is too low. This grave state of affairs is due, to a degree, which varies depending on the individual School, to: 1.Inability to provide adequate quantities of food owing to the rise in prices; 2.Failure to do so owing to parsimony; and 3.Failure to provide a properly balanced diet (even when the quantity is adequate) owing to lack of training in the management if institutions for children and ignorance of fundamental deictic principles. As to (1), the payment of the State capitation grant on all committed children and the increase from 5s to 7s per week of the State and local authority grants for children under 6, (both changes took effect as from the1st of July last), have done something to ease the schools’ financial position. When pressed to improve diet, however, managers complain continually that they cannot afford to do so, or that they can do so only by economising elsewhere e.g. in clothing. The Association of Managers has applied for an emergency bonus of 5s per week per child. There is no doubt that the schools, particularly the smaller ones and those that have no farms or very small ones have a case for an emergency increase in their income if they are to be compelled to maintain, and in many cases, to improve upon, their pre-war standards of food and clothing. As to (2), the strongest possible action has been taken in all cases where the Department was satisfied that parsimony was the predominant cause of gross malnutrition. Two resident managers have been removed from office at the request of the Minister for Education. Others have been solemnly warned and will be removed in due course if there is no adequate improvement. (in one such case in Co. Cork the warning was given personally by the Secretary of the Department accompanied by the Inspector of Reformatory and industrial Schools.) As to (3), this is a contributory cause of malnutrition in all schools, particularly those conducted by nuns, and an effort to eradicate it is an essential part of the general attack on malnutrition. It is proposed to have a course in institutional management next summer and to invite the Sister or Sisters in charge of the catering in each of the 43 schools conducted by nuns to attend. The City of Dublin Vocational Committee will be asked to conduct the course in Coláiste Muire la Tigheas, Cathal Brugha Street, and to make available the services of professors on their staff who are highly skilled in those subjects. From preliminary discussions between officers of the Committee and the Department it has been ascertained that the course could be specially designed to suit the actual conditions existing in the schools. It would deal with fundamentals of institutional cookery as applied to industrial schools needs, on costing, storage, and preparation of foodstuff. In addition, the Department’s Medical Inspector would avail of the opportunity to give some lecture on balance in diet, hygiene, etc. The course should last for four weeks. Having regard to the background out of which this proposal emerges persistent pressure by the Department on the schools to spend more money on food and constant complaints from the schools that they cannot afford to do so it will be clear that the course must not involve the schools in any expense if there is to be a reasonable prospect of securing their cooperation. It is proposed to make a grant of £9 towards the expense of each nuns travelling expenses, £6 for four weeks hostel expenses in Dublin, and £1 for materials and part maintenance (they will eat the meals they prepare). Nuns from Dublin City schools would receive the grant of £1 only.

In a long memo of 25th November 1944 written by Dr McCabe to a senior colleague she enclosed height and weight charts as a background to her scientific account of her attempts to get the schools to feed the children appropriate and nourishing food. The following quotation gives the flavour: For a considerable time past I have been carrying on a campaign for an improvement in the diet scales in the industrial and Reformatory Schools. Shortly after my appointment in 1939 I revised all the diet scales and advised individual schools as to deficiencies in the diet scale. On the whole I secured a measure of cooperation. I introduced many items of food to the school diet which were not then in use because they were unknown to the school managers. For a time all went well but that was in the halcyon days when food was plentiful and fairly cheap. The position on this regard cannot now be regarded as satisfactory.

In the early part of her career Dr McCabe was vociferous in her demands for improvements in diet and conditions in the schools and was quick to inform the Managers of her dissatisfaction. In a memo sent by Dr McCabe to the Department on 25th November 1944, it is clear that her reforms were often met with resistance from the schools and only instituted when Departmental pressure was applied: In the great majority of schools the children get a bare subsistence diet and nothing more. I have had abundant and convincing proof of this and have effected an improvement in conditions in some of the schools only after the strongest measures were used, e.g., Lenaboy and Passage West.

The Resident Managers often ascribed failings on their part with regard to the shelter and diet of the children to the inadequate funding received from the Department. The unavailability of funds was proffered as an excuse by both the Department of Education and the Resident Managers, in response to many of the weaknesses cited in the inspection reports. Consequently, Dr McCabe’s work was hampered by the ongoing capitation negotiations between the Congregations and the Departments of Education and Finance. At the end of her period in office in 1964, she wrote: I am constantly pressing for further improvements but I am met with the same query from all concerned ‘Where is the money to come from’... This state of affairs puts me in a very invidious position as I am unable to have the further improvements envisaged by me implemented.

Following an inspection of Letterfrack in 1957, Dr McCabe described the difficulty she faced in attempting to improve conditions in the schools: I would really like to see a number of improvements here- clothing, living conditions and cooking arrangements. I have often made suggestions but each time I feel up against a stone wall as always I am told increase the grant – give more money and of course I realize their difficulties – but all the same I will have to insist on better conditions for the boys. Br. Murphy the Resident Manager is very argumentative and difficult to persuade.

Dr McCabe advocated a strong response to Resident Managers who refused to implement recommendations: in striking contrast to the usual emollient words used by the Department, her correspondence with certain Resident Managers was often peppered with strong language and demands for improvements. One such letter to the reverend mother of Newtownforbes in 1940, in relation to unsanitary conditions and neglect of sick children, states: ‘I cannot find any excuse which would exonerate you and your staff.’ The inspector felt the best course of action was to hit the schools in their purses and threatened to reduce or remove state funding or certification if the Resident Managers did not comply Nevertheless, the Department considered it ‘impolitic’ to withdraw the certificates of suitability. However, Dr McCabe did succeed in having two Resident Managers removed from their positions as a direct result of her inspection reports.