Chapter 1 — Department of Education

Part 4 The Cussen Commission

In 1946 the Minister for Education enquired as to the suitability of the trades taught. He questioned that a pupil in Artane Industrial School was being taught gardening, which he felt ‘was not a suitable occupation in this day and age’. He requested that the matter of teaching trades in general be looked into. A Departmental memorandum was compiled in response to the Minister’s request, outlining the challenges facing the Resident Managers in this area, not least of which was finding suitable employment for the children. The memo went on to warn that if the Department ‘interferes much in the matter there might be a danger of the Managers trying to transfer their responsibility to the Department’. The memo also alluded to the severe criticism the Department had faced in 1952 from the Committee on Youth Unemployment for its failure to implement the recommendation of the Cussen Report with regard to industrial training. The author of the memo recommended that enquiries be made to the schools regarding: what trades were taught in the years 1943, 1944, 1945; the numbers of boys released into the trades taught; and the number of boys who were sent into different trades to the ones taught.

Significantly, the Artane statistics collected in response to these inquiries indicated that all, or nearly all, the boys went to employment in the trades in which they were trained. The gardening and tailoring figures for Greenmount, Carriglea and Clonmel, however, show that a significant number of boys did not end up in the trades in which they had been trained after they left their school.

In February 1955, the Joint Committee of Women’s Societies and Social Workers wrote to the Department recommending that qualified teachers should be provided to train the children in trades. Over a decade later, the situation appears to have remained unaltered. In 1966 a delegation from the Junior Chamber of Commerce was sent to Artane Industrial School to ascertain what could be done to help. Their report identified difficulties with the industrial training provided, specifically that the workshops and equipment were out of date. The authors of the report considered the training the boys received was not adequate and would not allow them to achieve employment in their craft. It also commented that, even if a boy became proficient in a trade, his training would not be recognised by a trade union.

About the same time, a letter of 10th February 1966 by Department of Education, replying to a letter from Joint Committee of Women’s Societies and Social Workers, stated: In the matter, however, of entry of industrial school pupils to Coláiste Mhuire, Cathal Brugha Street, an Agricultural School or College, Commercial School or the Civil Service, it would be extremely unusual for any person to enter any of these before at the very least seventeen years of age. The normal entry to them would be at about eighteen years of age. On the other hand, it is unusual for children to remain in industrial schools after sixteen, which is the statutory term of their committal. There is, however, another reason why it would be unlikely that children from industrial schools should enter such institutions as you mention. It is that entry is by competition, usually on the basis of a written examination and that the great majority of children in industrial schools are there on the grounds of ‘lack of proper guardianship’. This means that they come from unsettled homes; from which most of them have not been regular attendees at school and so are educationally retarded. Their chances at a competitive examination are therefore small indeed and so, as far as I know, there are none of them at the institution mentioned.

In earlier decades, some individual trade unions seem to have had a policy of preventing employers from recognising such training, or counting it as part of apprenticeship, and giving jobs on the basis of it, thus in large measure rendering it pointless (Cussen Report, para 123). The trade unions were presumably protecting their members by upholding the traditional means of entry. However in 1968 the Department of Education was advised by the Department of Labour that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions was concerned that career guidance and apprenticeship training did not appear to be receiving sufficient attention in the schools judging by the attainments of the ex-pupils of Industrial Schools in later life. They recommended the establishment of fully trained career guidance officers and the re-assessment of apprenticeship training.

• Cussen had stated that the whole system of training had needed revision. What followed, however, in terms of Departmental policy was a piecemeal set of circulars, and advisory actions which resulted in little change. In a statement to the Commission in 2006 the Department acknowledges that it did not give this matter ‘sufficient attention’.

The Cussen Commission were deeply unhappy with the schools’ provision of aftercare, which was intended to support the placing of children in trades and occupations for which they have received training in the schools. The Christian Brothers were cited as particularly negligent in their duties: We are not satisfied as to the adequacy of the methods of supervision and aftercare of children discharged from these schools, particularly in the case of boys leaving the Industrial Schools which are under the management of the Christian Brothers.

Figures taken from the Cussen Report for the years 1932-33 illustrate what happened to both boys and girls who left Reformatories and Industrial Schools after their periods of detention:

Occurrence after discharge	Industrial Schools	Reformatories
Returned home	148	14
Sent to employment	552	5
Retained awaiting employment	30	0
Recalled by Manager	26	0
Returned of own accord	39	4
Could not be traced	2	4
Total	730	19

Both of these tables show that a quarter of boys and a quarter of girls did not move from the schools into employment, with a large proportion returning home at the end of their detention. Aftercare was deemed especially important by the Cussen Commission as it was seen as a way of assisting the boys and girls who received poor occupational training.

The Report acknowledged the difficulties in securing employment in the skilled trades even for children who did not attend Industrial Schools and commented on the large numbers of Industrial Schools boys who gained work as agricultural or farm labourers regardless of their trade. Consequently Cussen advocated the payment of a capitation grant by the State towards the cost of apprenticeship. Several reasons were put forward as to why this system was so disorganised, including the idea that Managers did not fully appreciate their responsibilities in this area. Cussen suggested that school Managers take a more proactive role in securing employment for their students. This included establishing communication with the local labour exchange to determine what types of trade were in demand. In addition it was suggested that the Manager should explain to the children that if they faced any difficulties during the statutory period of aftercare they were entitled to return to the school in seek of help or advice

In 1952 at a meeting with representatives of the Department of Education and Justice McCarthy of the Dublin Metropolitan District Court, Fr Reidy, Resident Manager of Daingean, stated the there was ‘Not much done in aftercare’ and expressed his views as to why the boys had difficulty securing employment: Lads now are much lasier [sic] and more apathetic to work than 20 years ago. This problem is partly a result of social welfare schemes. (It is) important therefore to get them to work at anything at all.

In response Justice McCarthy suggested that it was this thinking, i.e. that ‘getting them work at ‘anything’ was perhaps to some extent the cause of the trouble’. Justice McCarthy also suggested the establishment of a hostel for the boys to enable them to adjust to life after the institution. However Fr Reidy disagreed, saying that it was a better option to break up the association amongst the boys after they left Daingean.

In August, 1966, a letter to the Minister for Education from Minister for Justice, stated ...I am suggesting that you, coming to the problems with a fresh mind, might have a look at the industrial schools system. I have no doubt that the lack of proper after-care is a grievous fault in the system and that there are ample resources of voluntary assistance only waiting to be harnessed and guided. I think that a vigorous approach to the managers of the industrial schools – individually or collectively would make it extremely difficult for them to maintain a negative attitude.

The file shows a reply from the Minister for Education stating that he would have a good look at the Industrial School system and would be in touch. A few months later, the Kennedy Committee was set up, by the Minister for Education.

Thirty years after the publication of the Cussen Report, a Department of Education memo to the Minister of Finance highlighted the lack of progress in the area of aftercare stated, ‘In general, with the exception of Artane, they (the schools) lack any kind of aftercare or organisation’.