Chapter 2 — Finance

Analysis of individual accounts

The trades and the farm contributed very significantly to the financial position of the institution.

In regard to capital expenditure there were no major items in the 1940s and the school achieved a surplus after capital expenditure in the 1950s. Such spending was at its greatest in the 1960s, ‘reflecting perhaps the need to address degeneration in the standard of accommodation over time’.27 However, It is not apparent from the Visitation Reports as to why the decision to take an extensive programme of upgrade and refurbishment was undertaken, when reports from the later part of the 1950s stressed the uncertainty of the future of the institution and the inappropriateness of incurring such costs in that environment. The most significant element of the capital expenditure incurred by the school was during the period 1963 to 1968, when the numbers of children in the institution were significantly in decline.28

This expenditure was funded: primarily from the school account – with the exception of the items funded in the 1940s by the house, and refunds received from the Board of Works referred to above. The house accounts in the 1950s and 1960s show very low levels of capital expenditure. 29

Mazars’ conclusions on Artane were as follows:

Total Expenditure	€2,364.996	100%
Funded by:
State and Local; Authorities	€1,868,443	79%
Other Income	€425,734	18%
Deficit – funded by the Order	(€70,819)	3%

The Congregation challenged five of Mazars’ assumptions, three of which were not accepted by Mazars. They were that: the land at Artane was gifted to the Christian Brothers for the specific purpose of establishing an Industrial School; the State had no responsibility to provide capital funding; the Industrial School and Christian Brother community in Artane were a single unit.

As the chapter on Artane shows, the documentary evidence indicated that Artane was acquired for the purpose of establishing an Industrial School. The Christian Brothers have stated 31 that the land upon which the Industrial School was built was purchased by the Congregation with Congregation funds. It had originally been intended for use as a novitiate for the Order but, upon the request from Archbishop Cullen, it was decided to use the land for the provision of an Industrial School for boys. However, a letter dated June 1870 by a proposed management committee to the Chief Secretary for Ireland stated that Artane Castle plus 23 hectares of land had been purchased for the purpose of setting up an industrial school.32 The property had been purchased for £7,000 and it was proposed that dormitories, classrooms etc would be erected for a further £1,600.

The Christian Brothers stated: Public personages of all shades of opinion gave the school generous support. To raise the funds for the provision of permanent buildings a petition by a large number of people was presented to the Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor in response to this petition called a public meeting and substantial voluntary funds were soon received. From this response and from newspaper articles of the time it is clear that there was strong public support for the work of the school. The design, atmosphere and work ethos of the school received much acclaim from numerous eminent persons in public life and many visitors were impressed with what the witnessed.

Whatever about the initial proposal that £1,600 would be spent building dormitories and classrooms, we know from a souvenir Annual which was published by Artane in 1905 that buildings which had cost over £60,000 had been erected at Artane by that time.

The land associated with the school increased from 23 hectares (about 56 acres) up to a maximum of 143 hectares (about 353 acres) by the early 1940s.

The position therefore is not clear. Mazars were, however, entitled to rely on contemporaneous documentation in the absence of any evidence to the contrary. The issue of capital funding has already been dealt with above. There is no suggestion that the State was not obliged to provide capital funding. The issue Mazars looked at was whether the capitation grant was intended to be used for this purpose. The answer would appear to be that it was not. The Sisters of Mercy and in particular the Sisters of Charity appeared to have understood this. Capital grants were available for building projects directly connected with the school and these should have been funded separately from the maintenance of the children. If State grants were inadequate to meet the needs, other fund-raising options could have been explored. The important point is that capitation was intended for the children and should have been used for that purpose.

The third point raised addressed the issue of seeing the Community and the school as a single unit. The Industrial School and the Community were in the main funded from the same source. It is not possible to look at the issue of finance without regarding the operation as a single unit from the point of view of the allocation of that funding. There was no specified sum that was designated for the use of the Congregation out of State payments. Each Congregation made their own decisions on how much would be allocated to that purpose and therefore the funding of the monastery had to be seen in the context of the overall financial position of the institution.

The Christian Brothers’ submission argues strongly about what they were entitled to in terms of property and salary, but never mentions the essential charitable nature of the work. Assumptions about the altruism of the Brothers’ involvement in this work underscored its relationship with the State and certainly formed the basis of the public’s view of the Congregation and its members. From the tone of the Congregation’s submission it would appear that these assumptions were not correct. The difficulty for the Committee is that for many other religious communities, charity and altruism were very important and they did not see the Industrial School as a business but rather as a calling. It is clear that individual Brothers were likewise motivated by a strong sense of religious vocation. The Committee believes that many of the charitable, hard-working members of the Community who gave their lives to the service of others would be disturbed at the tone of the Congregation’s submission.

The Congregation rightly point out that, at its closure, Artane Industrial School had a deficit of €70,819 which was paid off by them in 1971. Much of this deficit arose during the 1960s when large capital projects, including the building of a swimming pool, were undertaken. Visitation Reports had been questioning the viability of Artane as an Industrial School from the late 1950s and there is no indication in the documents as to whether these expenses were incurred in the expectation that Artane’s future as an Industrial School was assured.

Unlike the Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Mercy had no internal monitoring of their schools and there is absolutely no written account surviving of what difficulties, if any, the school experienced during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. The accounts that survived were piecemeal and the information contained in them was incomplete and confusing.

There were no accounts produced for the period 1939-54. Six-monthly accounts were available for the period 1955-69 with the exception of three sets ending 31st December 1957, 30th June 1968 and 30th June 1969.