Chapter 4 — Residential child welfare in Ireland 1965-2008

Section 3: 1965-1976 – residential childcare in transition

In relation to residential care, the group ‘felt that the task of house-father and house mother may have to be left to the religious communities’ and that ‘consideration should be given to the concept of a new type of foster-parent who would take on the task as a regular working arrangement and be paid an appropriate salary by the Health Authority’. The group elaborated on this point arguing: ‘highly skilled women would be needed to undertake this arduous task. They should be the type who would not become emotionally involved with every child placed in their care, and they should be able to go looking after children, and accept the facts of the situation i.e. that the children will, at some stage, be taken from them’.

The group also agreed that ‘there is a need for some form of detention for teen-age girls’ and that there ‘should be a two-sided approach to the problem of prostitution (a) the prevention of young girls from setting out on such a career (b) the provision of an escape route for girls who genuinely wish to reform their lives’. On legal issues, the group noted ‘the defining of Health Authorities as “fit persons” will greatly increase the responsibilities of those Authorities. It is essential that they have the resources necessary to meet the added responsibilities thrust upon them.’

In addition, a few weeks later, on 5th August 1971, a deputation from the Eastern Health Board comprising the senior administrative officers of the Welfare Department, the Director of the Child Guidance Clinic in the Mater Hospital, the Chief Child Psychiatrist of the Board and the Section Officer of the Children’s Section met with representatives of the Department of Education in relation to accommodation for Dublin boys in Industrial Schools. The deputation highlighted that while 450 boys from Dublin were accommodated in Industrial Schools throughout the country, there were a further 90 to 100 boys for whom accommodation in Industrial Schools could not be found. The health board deputation claimed, ‘many of them are disturbed and the difficulty of getting schools to take many of them is resulting in their becoming a “hard core” of unwanted’. The Department of Education were of the view that this difficulty had largely arisen from the closure of the Artane Industrial School on 30th June 1969. However some spare capacity existed in the Salthill Industrial School in Galway and it was hoped that the opening of the new school in Finglas would alleviate some of the difficulties.196

The Department of Justice responded to the request for observations on the report on 20th April 1972. In relation to places of detention, they ‘considered that formal responsibility for providing places of detention for juveniles would be more appropriately exercised by your Department than by the Department of Justice which has heretofore had that formal responsibility as the successor to the “police authority” referred to in the Children Act, 1908’. Responding to criticisms made of St Patrick’s Institution and the aftercare of children leaving reformatory and industrial schools, they noted that improvements had been made to St Patrick’s since the preparation of the report and that the welfare service operated by the Department had expanded since the publication of the report with plans for further expansion.

Although not formally a response to the invitation issued by the Department of Education, Mr O’Mahony in an article in the Irish Jurist provided an overview, both of the Report and of the case law on residential care in Ireland. In relation to the latter he observed that: There is, perhaps unfortunately, a marked absence of reported decisions of the Irish courts on the provisions of the Children Acts dealing with residential care and the administrative and judicial procedures leading to it. This is somewhat surprising, and disquieting, particularly when one considers, in the light of the Irish Constitution, the wide scope of Section 58 of the 1908 Act (as amended) which gives statutory power to the Children’s Court to commit children, up to the age of 15 years, to long periods of detention in industrial schools for a variety of reasons far removed from the criminal law. Such a sense of disquiet is greater to-day if one accepts that the statutory definition of an ‘industrial school’ as being ‘a school for the industrial training of children in which children are lodged, clothed and fed as well as taught’ is not now, if it ever was, an accurate definition, and that a place of detention would be closer to reality.197

In relation to a core recommendation in the Kennedy Report and indeed a host of other reports that examined residential care in Ireland that the Children Act 1908 (as amended) should be replaced, Mr O’Mahony stated that: in the short term and from a strictly legal viewpoint, the case for a completely new Children Act is not as obvious as many would make it out to be. Clearly, if the immediate effect of an updating and consolidation of the law on this subject was the blotting-out of the past and the providing of inspiration for the future it could be argued for that reason alone new legislation would be worthwhile. However, there is, at present, sufficient statutory power to have most of the recommendations of the Kennedy Report put into effect, because basically these recommendations come down to, (i) new buildings, and (ii) training and research as to what is best for children in residential care. New buildings require money from the State (i.e., the Department of Education) and there is sufficient statutory power for this to be done. Training and research also require money and time but not necessarily immediate new legislation.198

Having earlier considered the recommendations of the report, on 4th February 1972, Mr O’Sullivan drafted a commentary for Mr O’Rourke on the Kennedy Report. Acknowledging that the Department of Health had a representative on the Committee, he nonetheless went to say that: The report of the Committee could be criticised on the grounds that it has dealt with services outside the terms of reference prescribed for it by the Government. While the recommendations made by the Committee are in general exceedingly valuable, they may be questioned for example on the grounds that while the Committee dealt with Boarding-out for children, it had neither a Children’s Officer nor a health authority officer conversant with that field of activity, amongst its members. This may be the reason why the services administered by Health Authorities under the Health Acts, the Children’s Acts and the Adoption Acts (boarded-out and nursed out children etc.,) were not examined in the same detail as those available to children in Industrial and Reformatory Schools, although the total number of children dealt with by Health Authorities exceeds those dealt with by the Department of Education in their residential schools. Furthermore the Report does not give all the credit it might to the enlightened approach of many health authorities in this field.

The memo, having dealt with the inadequacies of the Report, noted that it had: made several fundamental recommendations aimed at providing an efficient and fully satisfactory care system for all children requiring it. The achievement of this objective will of necessity take many years, as it would involve the implementation of new legislation, the recruitment and training of staff, and considerable expenditure both on revenue and capital projects. The principal recommendation which affects this Department is one which suggests that administrative responsibility for all aspects of child care should be transferred to the Department of Health. The immediate effect of the implementation of this recommendation would be the handing over of administrative responsibility for 28 Industrial Schools, 3 Reformatory Schools and one Remand Home. A further recommendation made by the Devlin Committee199 and supported by the Committee on Reformatory and Industrial Schools is that the Department of Health should take over from the Department of Justice responsibility for adoption work.

Mr O’Sullivan went on to state that: Ideally child welfare services should as far as possible be planned and be subject to supervision by one Department, to ensure that they are looked at in a comprehensive way and also to ensure there is no conflict in aims which may very well arise if the services are the responsibility of different Departments. Child care is but one aspect of family care and a proper family care service would in fact tend to eliminate the need for taking many children into residential care -e.g. children from broken homes or children whose mothers must go into hospital for short-term care. Similarly, it is not satisfactory to isolate the residential schools aspect of child care from the facilities provided for the community care of the child. For example the need to have a child committed to an Industrial School should be considered in the light of the ability of the mother or other member of the family to care for it in its own home, supported, where necessary, by ancillary services, including day nurseries. While Health Authorities avail of the accommodation provided in Industrial Schools this Department has no control, no legal right of entry to inspect the Schools. It seems to be that good grounds exist for having all social aspects of child care including crèches, day nurseries, boarding-out, residential care and adoption dealt with by the one Department. As it is not really feasible nor indeed desirable to separate child care from family care and as the latter seems to be a field in which the Department is becoming more and more involved it would seem logical that we should agree with the recommendations of the Reformatory and Industrial Schools Committee that all aspects of child care should be dealt with by this Department. The Department of Education would, however, continue to have control of the educational aspects affecting the Schools.

While acknowledging the desirability of such an administrative change, he went on to note: ..it is equally clear that this Department is not in a position to assume responsibility for all aspects of child care, including residential care, until an adequate staff (both at professional and administrative level) becomes available to provide a proper service. No real improvement will be effected in the existing services merely by transferring functions relating to Industrial Schools etc., to this Department. 1. Adequate staff (a) Departmental – both professional and administrative. The Report recommends that establishment of a child care division in the Dept! (b) In the field – Health board staff providing child care services must be recruited in sufficient numbers and appropriately trained. This applies also to staff of voluntary agencies active in child care. 2. Adequate Services (a) (missing) (b) Residential schools and children’s homes must be modernised where necessary, and their role must be more closely linked with the necessary community services provided. (c) Services for day care of children require considerable expansion. (d) After care services, including advisory services, placement in employment, provision of hostel or other accommodation must be expanded. Unless control of these developments rests with one Government Agency, progress in child care will tend to remain uncoordinated as at present and will also be slow and haphazard.

The memo concluded by arguing: I feel that there is not much point in commenting on the very many other recommendations made by the Committee until a decision is first taken on whether this Department will have overall responsibility for the Residential Schools. The recommendations are, however, in general acceptable, but I would have reservations about the establishment of a Statutory Advisory Committee as suggested in the Report, which would act as a ‘watchdog committee’, to encourage the training of staff and the undertaking of research and publicity. If the other recommendations of the Committee are to be implemented, I would feel a better approach would be the establishment of a working group representative of the Departments concerned, the Health Boards and the organisations active in the field of child care, to consider existing legislation, to examine developments abroad, and to advise on the broad lines of legislation which might be developed here. This group would also be useful in that it would give an opportunity to the various voluntary organisations to air their views at the formative stage of legislation on certain controversial aspects of child care which are bound to arise, e.g. the question of compulsory notification of both legitimate and illegitimate children placed in residential care for reward or not. Finally, I would recommend that officers of the Department of Education should be invited to discuss the report with officers of this Department, if there is a difference of opinion between the two Departments as to who should be responsible for industrial schools.

Mr O’Rourke in his response to this memo stated that he had: some misgivings about the transfer of responsibility in relation to special schools and remand homes for those aged 15 and upwards to what is described in the report as a child care division. Nevertheless, I would accept that on balance the advantage lies in placing, in the one Department, administrative responsibility for various aspects of the care of deprived children mentioned in the report and on the whole my personal view would be that this recommendation is acceptable in principle. I would hope, however, that when the matter comes to be considered at Government level, it would be fully apparent that the radical improvement in services for deprived children suggested in this report is going to cost a great deal of money. Much of the expenditure will be on proper staffing and training and because of its nature will involve heavy revenue costs. There will also, if many of the report’s recommendations are accepted, be considerable capital expenditure involved on such residential homes and special schools will be continue to be needed even if an adequate level of prevention services is built up. It would highly undesirable, in my opinion that an impression should be given that these proposals are to be accepted in principle unless there is at the same time a definite commitment to capital and revenue expenditure of an amount adequate to implement the recommendations.

He concluded by stating: I would like to emphasise that in my opinion there can be no question of administrative responsibility for the services mentioned in this report being transferred to this Department without the establishment of a special division to undertake the reform of the services for deprived children...Unless there is an unequivocal commitment to providing the financial and staffing resources required to implement a reform programme in this field it would, in my opinion, be better to put the report away.

In November 1971, the journalist Nell McCafferty, in an article in the Irish Times, noted that a year had passed since the publication of the Kennedy Report and posed the question ‘Just what has been done about the Kennedy Report?’ Her answer was that the report contained 13 recommendations and that ‘the Government has taken action on one part of one recommendation, relating to the training of staff responsible for child care. A one month residential course for senior personnel was held in Dublin in July. Otherwise, nothing. It’s been a grim year for children.’200

In July and August 1971, a deputation from the Department of Education visited the Daingean Reformatory and the Salthill, Letterfrack and Clonmel Industrial Schools.