884 entries for Government Department

Some names have not been anonymised. Officials of the Department of Education are generally described by the names they used in correspondence or reports.

These meetings were held in advance of the annual meeting for Resident Managers of all industrial schools and reformatories, which were convened by the Resident Managers Association. This association was a means whereby industrial schools could present a united front in negotiations with the Department of Education.

According to the Department of Education and Science in its statement furnished in advance of the Phase III hearings, the payment was intended ‘to cover the expenses incurred in maintaining the children in the schools, including clothing, footwear, food, general medical care, staffing and accommodation’. The Department of Education and Science also explained that, under the legislation that set up this system, ‘the school premises were owned and provided by the religious orders. The schools provided their own buildings, farms and plant without the aid of the State and local Authorities’.

In all of the correspondence between the Department of Education and the Orders on the question of finance, the financial needs of the Community or the Congregation were never discussed. The Department of Education’s understanding of its role as set out above was to pay capitation grants in respect of youthful offenders and children committed to their schools under the provisions of the Children Acts, 1908 and 1941, and the School Attendance Act, 1926.

The Visitation Reports often contain information and comment that are much more critical and disapproving than the Department of Education Inspector’s reports, which were also supposed to be conducted annually and were focused on the health of the boys and the conditions within the school.

Having completed the Novitiate, the temporarily professed Brother was sent to the Congregation’s Teacher Training College in Marino to study primary school teaching. The course was two years in length, but the Congregation was given a dispensation from the Department of Education whereby its members left the college when they completed their first year to work in schools run by the Congregation. After a number of years working in the field, the Brothers returned to college to complete their second year and become fully qualified National Teachers. This arrangement with the Department delayed the acquisition of the National Teacher qualification.

Other admissions to Artane were insignificant in number in the 1940s but they increased substantially later. Health Board and voluntary admissions increased from 13 in the 1940s to 113 in the 1950s, and 136 in the 1960s. These admissions were not included in the number of children in respect of whom a capitation grant was payable by the Department of Education. They were either privately funded to attend the School or paid for by the Health Board, and in the latter years they accounted for an additional 50% of boys in Artane.

During June 1969, the 211 boys who were still detained in Artane were moved out and the Institution closed on the 30th of that month. 120 boys were discharged to their parents or godparents or placed in jobs. Of the remainder, 26 boys were transferred to Ferryhouse, and the others went in small numbers to different institutions around the country. These dispositions were agreed after much discussion and many meetings between the School authorities and the Department of Education.

The recommendation to divide the Industrial School was not implemented, although, in the last years of Artane’s existence when the numbers had dropped to a fraction of previous decades, the boys were segregated into two groups according to their ages. The documentary records of the Christian Brothers and the Department of Education did not disclose the reason for rejecting the proposal to divide the School. There was no record of discussion or debate or of any explicit decision in that regard. Although the Congregation in its submissions has blamed the Department of Education for failure to implement this recommendation, it must also bear responsibility. If the Brothers had proposed such a change, it is difficult to see how the Department could have reasonably opposed it. When the division was made in 1967, admittedly a much smaller alteration in view of the reduced population, it was an internal decision of the Congregation.

In addition to oral evidence, the Investigation Committee considered documentary discovery material received from a number of sources, namely the Christian Brothers, the Department of Education and Science, An Garda Síochána, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Archbishop of Dublin and the Health Service Executive.

There are Department of Education General and Medical Inspection Reports for most of the period of the investigation. Files from the headquarters of the Christian Brothers in Rome yielded evidence of cases of sexual abuse considered by the Congregation to have been admitted or proven against individual Brothers. Visitation Reports of the Christian Brothers were another valuable source of information. Infirmary records were scant and were shown to be misleading in some cases. There was a statutory requirement to maintain a punishment book, which was to be examined by the Department of Education Inspector, but no such book was maintained.

An unusual feature about Artane was that there was independent evidence as to conditions there. The evidence was firstly that of Fr Henry Moore, who was chaplain to Artane by appointment of the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr J.C. McQuaid, from 1960 to 1967. Fr Moore was the author of a confidential report on conditions in Artane, which he wrote in 1962 at the request of the Archbishop. He also gave evidence about the Institution to an Inter-Departmental Committee on juvenile crime in the same year, as a result of which controversy arose between officials of the Department of Justice and the Department of Education. Fr Moore was exceptionally qualified to comment on residential schools and the Christian Brothers, because he had spent nearly 10 years as a resident of St Vincent’s Glasnevin, an orphanage operated by the Christian Brothers. Fr Moore’s evidence is discussed in detail later in this chapter.

In 1946 a former resident of Artane (from 1929 to 1935) began to correspond with the Department of Education regarding conditions at Artane. Initially, his complaints related to the primitive sanitation system in operation in the Institution. Then, in a letter dated 6th November, he wrote: It is 11 yrs since I was in Artane and I dont forget one minute of it, neither do others, the injustices done to others and myself, I will see; wont happen to others: Boys beaten, under the Shower Baths by Staff Mr Byrne,11 Boys heads beaten on the Handball Alley Wall by Bro Acel12 And a Drill Master who used say “do it where you Stand” when a Boy ask to go to the W.C.

In a memorandum dated 8th November 1946, the Assistant Secretary in the Department of Education agreed with the Inspector that no action was required in response to this letter. No response was sent to the former resident and no comment was sought from the Resident Manager.

There was opposition to this proposal from the Departments of Justice and Education and the Judiciary. A meeting was convened on 14th May 1954, attended by Br O’Hanlon, District Justice McCarthy, who presided over the Dublin Metropolitan Children’s Court, and representatives of the Department of Education. District Justice McCarthy indicated that he had grave concerns about the isolated location of Letterfrack, which made it unsuitable, in his view, as a school for young offenders. However, his protest fell on deaf ears. So, too, did a protest from District Justice Gleeson, who also pointed out the difficulties that would be caused by Letterfrack’s remoteness.