Chapter 2 — Finance

Value of work done by the Order

Two important factors arise: All of the Brothers’ ordinary living expenses were paid by the school including food, accommodation and general maintenance of the monastery. The stipend, which was paid directly to the monastery, covered expenses such as clothing, holidays, travel and medical care. All Brothers received this stipend, even those in more menial positions in the school and those with no involvement in the care of the boys. If £300 represented a fair remuneration for a Brother who was a teacher in the school, it was arguably an overpayment for Brothers who worked in the kitchens or the farm. It was certainly an overpayment for those Brothers who were retired and elderly and who were not directly involved in the running of the school.

Although the value of the stipend fell in the latter half of the 1960s, it was a generous payment in the 1940s and 1950s and early 1960s. It allowed Artane and other schools to make significant contributions to the building fund, which facilitated the development of Christian Brothers’ schools outside of the Industrial School system.

It is not correct to assert that the payment of stipends represented a significant saving to the State on salaries that would otherwise have to be paid. The cost to the State of running institutions like Artane was considerable.

It is not clear that the cost to the State of paying all the Brothers in the institution a stipend was fully understood by the Department of Education or the Department of Finance at the time. As was shown in the historical section of this chapter, no proper breakdown of this figure was submitted to the Department in the 1940s or 1950s and no reference appears to have been made to it by the Department in its communications with the Resident Managers’ Association when discussing increases in grants.

A difficulty with the Christian Brothers’ submission is in the distinction between the charitable contributions of individual Brothers and the larger interests of the Congregation, including the funding of its operations.

In respect of the Reformatory at Daingean, run by the Oblate order, Mazars stated that the payments to the Province amounted to almost €50,000 over the period under review: A report prepared on behalf of the Oblate Order in May 2002 indicates that these payments to the Province and to the Order members were funded by farm sales, stipends and donations. An analysis of payments to the Province and to the Order members in the context of the surplus/deficit generated from the farm and income from donations and stipends indicates, however, that in most years such income sources, when related costs are taken into account, would not have supported the level of payments made to the Province and to the Order members and, at an overall level for the period from 1940 to 1969, payments to the Province and to the Order members would have exceeded these sources of income by an amount of approximately €25,111, i.e. farm income, donations, stipends and sundry sales together exceeded farm expenditure by just €35,395 and were not sufficient to cover payments to the Province... This would, therefore, imply that capitation grants were, in part, funding payments to the Province’19.

In response, the Oblate Order made a strong submission on the question of the value of the Order’s work in Daingean to the State. This was not part of their opening statement but it was addressed by them in their response to the Mazars’ report. They stated: For example, the full value of the work done by the priests and brothers of the Oblate order should be counted as a cost to the school, matched by a liability from the school to the Oblate order.

The economic consultants, Goodbody’s, engaged by the Oblates attempted to work out the cost of the work done by the religious against the value to them of their accommodation and living expenses. They stated: When a minimum value of the work done by the members of the order is recognised, and this value is reduced by maximum values for the value of the goods, services and cash provided by St Conleth’s to the Oblate order the accumulated loss increases to €113,947 [£96,268].

According to the accounts furnished by the Order, 10 percent of the total income received by the institution was paid to the Order by way of stipends or direct payment to the Province20. If the figure suggested by Goodbody’s for food and accommodation was added to that, a total of €251,000 was used by the Order out of the capitation grant, which represented approximately 1/3rd of all income21.

An important added factor is that Daingean accommodated a large number of retired priests who had little or no contact with the school. A former Resident Manager of the Order was asked about this at hearing. It was pointed out to him that of the five priests listed in Daingean, only one appeared to have direct involvement with the school, and he said in respect of the other four: They were there for different purposes. It would often give a choice of say confessor for a boy.

A former Resident Manager said that one priest was interested in arts and crafts and another in music and that they involved themselves in those activities.

Of the 19 Brothers, only six or seven appeared to be involved with the school and the former Resident Manager mentioned a number of Brothers who were retired and still living in the Community and still receiving stipends.

He confirmed that in addition to these stipends, a levy was paid to the Province to pay for the training of new members. You see every community was expected to make some contribution to the central fund because men had to be provided and trained and things like that and this was common enough.

He had a difficulty with this because he ceased paying this contribution in the 1960s when he became Manager:

Mazars observed: The Industrial and Reformatory Schooling system during the period under review did not provide for payment by the State, of salaries of those employed in the running of the institutions. The matter of salaries would not appear to be a matter which was raised by the Order at the time they ran the Reformatory in Daingean. Rather they appeared to accept the responsibility of managing the Reformatory and, in so doing, participated in the system as it prevailed at that time.22