Chapter 2 — Finance

Analysis of individual accounts

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.

This fact alone is a matter of serious criticism of the Community. When private bodies receive State funding there is an absolute responsibility to account for how that money was spent. That was even truer in the middle of the last century when money was scarce and public funding limited. It is difficult to form any definitive view on Goldenbridge in the absence of proper records.

However, the analysis by Mazars on the level of funding by reference to contemporaneous indices would indicate that, as a large institution, the capitation grant should have been adequate to provide a reasonable standard of physical care. Goldenbridge did not have a farm and did not have profit-making trades shops, but it did have a thriving bead-making industry during the 1950s and into the 1960s. No financial records survived about this income but Mazars were able to establish an estimate of the income it generated. They stated:

Bead Income
Number of children	120	90	60	30
Income per decade	IR£0.11	IR£0.11	IR£0.11	IR£0.11
Income per annum	IR£3,432	IR£2,574	IR£1,716	IR£858
Discounted income per annum	IR£2,869	IR£2,152	IR£1,435	IR£717

The major outgoings were food (34%), wages (21%), clothes (12%), building repairs and decoration (11%), fuel and light (7%), furniture and fittings (3%), medical (1%) and other (11%). Wages comprised staff wages, payments to the Resident Manager and payments to the reverend mother. Limited information is available in relation to the staffing levels during the period 1939– 69. We understand that generally the staffing consisted of two nuns (both teaching and one having the dual responsibility of resident manager), two lay teachers and a number of other staff (seamstress, domestic, etc). We note that based on records of 1955 there were eight members of staff excluding the nuns and teachers. This increased to eleven members of staff in 1958.34

The school accounts available for the period 1955-69 showed a surplus of €33,410.

As already outlined above, the accounts of the Carysfort Mother House revealed monthly payments totalling approximately €5,000. €9,000 per annum were received from ‘National Education Goldenbridge.’ Mazars observed: The source of the income is not clear nor is the extent to which the payments related to wages. It is also not clear how much of this income, or expenditure, relates to the industrial school, rather than the adjacent national school.35

The Report noted that the total capital expenditure during the period 1951-69 was €158,745. Capital expenditure using the school account was primarily on building repairs and decorations and furniture and fittings. In the 1960s this amounted to 19 percent of expenditure. In 1969 repairs to buildings made up 29 percent of expenditure. We have received some records in respect of a building account held in the 1960s which was funded by the school account and various grants. It is unclear how much of these funds were used for properties other than for the industrial school; although based on a sample review of such expenditure we did note a certificate of payment in respect of Rathdrum in the amount of IR£750. The accounts of the industrial school indicate funding given to capital expenditure of IR£2,000 for the purchase of a holiday home in 1954, with further contributions to the building fund account of IR£2,000 in 1959 and IR£4,000 in 1960, before a subsequent repayment from the building fund account to the school account of IR£1,050.36

Mazars’ conclusion was that based on the limited information available, the financial position of Goldenbridge over the period 1939-69 ‘are probably best characterised as being one of being close to break even’.37

Where accounts are available, the position is summarised as follows:

Total Expenditure	€351,743	100%
Funded by:
State and Local; Authorities	€282,239	80%
Other Income	€102,913	29%
Surplus	€33,410	9%

The analysis by the Sister of Mercy accountants acknowledged weakness in the fact that it was not possible to get supplementary explanations of various figures in the accounts.