Chapter 2 — Finance

The basic cost of keeping a child in an industrial school

The same question was raised in a letter by Mr Breathnach of the Department of Finance in 1957-58. He wrote: There is another aspect of the question which puzzles us – the wide range of expenditure on various items by the schools, e.g. Item Cost per head Food £25.8 - £54.6 a year Fuel and light £4.3 - £15 a year Clothing £5.4 - £20.3 a year Salaries £11.3 - £40 a year Do you know why it should cost £2.1s a week to keep each of 117 inmates in St. Lawrence, Sligo, while the cost of keeping 120 at Clifden, Co Galway, should be only about £1.11 s? It would be helpful if your Department could explain the disparity.

The Department of Education attempted to gain information to establish the basic cost of keeping a child in an Industrial School by requesting detailed accounts. These requests were made in the following years: 1945 21 schools out of 52 responded 1947 statement of income and expenditure was received from all industrial schools 1950 42 industrial schools and one reformatory school provided statements 1954 nine schools provided accounts. 1955 The Resident Managers’ Association provided accounts for 22 schools 1962 The Department requested accounts from six representative schools. Nine schools provided statements. 1964 The Resident Managers Association provided a summary of the financial situation of 21 schools to support their application for an increase in the rate of the grant.

The request for accounts in 1945

Despite the Department’s general recognition that the Industrial Schools were underfunded, they were at times sceptical about the claims being made by the Resident Managers.

For example, a deputation from the Resident Managers’ Association went to see the Minister for Education on 10th July 1945 to request an increase in the capitation grant, the payment of salaries to literary teachers and the application of medical and dental services to Industrial Schools. The Minister told the deputation that if statements of accounts, preferably audited, were submitted they would be examined by the Department with a view to submitting them to the Department of Finance. He stressed that a convincing case would have to be made for an increase in the capitation grant.

Only 21 Industrial Schools submitted statements and, of these, just five were ‘stated to have been prepared by accountants and/or auditors’. They were Rathdrum Junior Boys’ School, Goldenbridge, Westport, New Ross, and Wexford.

Three of the 10 senior boys’ Industrial Schools submitted statements prepared by the Orders. They were Greenmount, Upton and Ferryhouse.

Four Industrial Schools for junior boys submitted statements: Passage West, Kilkenny, Drogheda and Rathdrum.

Fourteen girls’ industrial schools made submissions: Clonakilty, Kinsale, Booterstown, Goldenbridge, Westport, Birr, Wexford, Lakelands, Kilkenny female, Ballaghaderreen, Benada Abbey, Whitehall, Dundrum (County Tipperary) and New Ross.

These schools were run by the following orders: Rosminians, Presentation Brothers, Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of the Order of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge, Sisters of the Presentation Order and Sisters of the Good Shepherd.

These 21 statements, covering a period of 12 months in the years 1944 and 1945, were duly examined and the result was recorded in a Departmental memo as follows: Three of the accounts showed excesses of Income over Expenditure. viz Birr, £1.2.5, Dundrum £433 (excluding an amount of £810 claimed as ‘an allowance to Sisters wholly employed in the Industrial School’ which would convert this surplus into a deficit of £377) and New Ross £6.4.3. The remaining accounts showed deficits ranging from £27 to over £5000.

The Department went on to conclude: The statements cannot be regarded as very reliable or as furnishing an accurate view of the financial position of the schools. In some cases items of capital expenditure (especially for repairs, renewals and additional buildings) have been included e.g. Whitehall, where a deficit of £5,036 is shown a sum of £4,573 is stated to have been expended on building repairs and erection of a new sanitary wing. It was also observed that in many cases the salaries paid from the Primary Branch to members of the communities serving in the schools as literary teachers were not included in the statements of Income. The inclusion of this item would in some cases reduce the deficit to a negligible figure or convert it to a surplus of income over expenditure. We have no means of determining from these statements whether the produce of the farms or gardens is supplied to the schools or charged against the school accounts at wholesale or retail prices.

Despite these criticisms of the accounting methods the Department did reach a conclusion: On the whole we feel that the statements are not reliable. We also wish to point out that the period to which they refer may be regarded as the period of the emergency when the cost of food, clothing and other necessaries attained its maximum. In all the circumstances and making allowance for an anticipated reduction in time in the cost of these items consequent on the termination of the World War and a gradual easement in the supply position we do not feel that on the information contained in these statements a convincing case could be made to the Department of Finance for an increase in the Capitation Grant.

In concluding that the capitation grant was adequate, the Department took into account the fact that most institutions had not bothered to submit their accounts, despite the desired increase being dependent on their production. The Department wrote: We are also influenced in making this observation by the fact that a majority (over thirty) of the schools did not furnish any statements of income or expenditure in support of the claim for increased grants and also that as practically all the schools have farms attached the increased prices for agricultural produce during the emergency compensated to some extent for the rise in the cost of living.

On the face of it, the Department’s demand for detailed and reliable accounts was not unreasonable, but many institutions, including all those run by the Christian Brothers, did not comply. The result was they lost their case for an increase in funding.

The document also illustrates that the Department recognised that each institution had different needs, because of their different sizes and resources. The request for accounts from every institution was an attempt to assess these differing needs that were not being met by the capitation grant system.