884 entries for Government Department

It is not known whether this conference ever took place, and the Department of Justice in their Statement said: ‘The departmental files do not reveal if such a conference did take place’. In any event, the suggestion of Judge MacCarthy that District Judges undertake inspections of Marlborough House was not implemented and the lack of inspections continued until its closure.

The Department of Education produced a memorandum on the closing of the Institution. It announced the closure of Marlborough House on 1st August 1972. In the first step towards its closure, the Department decided that boys on remand were not to be sent there from 22nd May 1972. From that date, only short-term committals under section 106 of the Children Act, 1908 were accepted. It was decided not to provide a place of detention to replace Marlborough House, ‘as the Minister for Education is satisfied that the concept of the committal of young offenders to an institution such as Marlborough House for a period of detention up to one month is not in accordance with present-day attitudes as to the appropriate treatment for children under care ...’. The Minister for Justice removed Marlborough House from the Register of Places of Detention for the purposes of Part V of the Children Act, 1908 on 28th July 1972.

The Investigation Committee heard evidence in private from three witnesses at the Commission’s offices on 31st March 2006. The Department of Education and Science and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform were legally represented at these hearings. In addition to oral evidence, the Investigation Committee considered documents received from both of these Departments as part of the discovery process. Statements were also furnished by these two Departments for the Phase III hearings. The Secretary General of the Department of Education and Science, Ms Brigid McManus, gave evidence at a two-day public hearing on 12th and 13th June 2006. These hearings focused on the role of the Department of Education in the regulation of industrial schools and its management of Marlborough House. The Assistant Secretary of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr James Martin, gave evidence in public on 19th June 2006. The premises: a condemned building

When Marlborough House was acquired by the Department of Education, the OPW advised that it required considerable repair but that it could easily be adapted for use as a detention centre. The front of the building was in very poor condition, particularly the roof and the walls. These repairs were not undertaken because, in February 1952, eight years after taking possession of it, the Department was informed by the OPW of the ‘bad state of repair’ of the roof and top storey of the front part of the building. This part of the building was very precarious, and they advised that the top storey would have to be reconstructed by taking it down to ‘put a reinforced band around the whole building, lay a new second floor in concrete if required, rebuild the walls, stacks and parapets and put on a new roof’. An internal Department of Education memorandum in 1952 stated: ‘This place should never have been used to cater for children ...’.

In August 1952, the OPW again wrote to the Department of Education, seeking permission to go ahead with the re-construction of the front of the building, without delay, because of the dangerous condition of the roof and top storey. On 7th September 1955, the OPW stressed again the ‘dangerous condition’ of the front of the building and stated: ‘It is imperative that there be no further delay whatsoever on the question of reaching a decision about its demolition and reconstruction’. In another letter, dated 28th November 1955, they stated: ... we have to inform you that the premises have reached such an extreme state of dilapidation that we cannot guarantee that any measures which we may take will serve to render them safe for occupation for even a short period.

The reticence on the part of the Department to acquiesce to these vital repair works resulted from the anticipated transfer of the management to a religious Order. By December 1957, the Department thought this would take place within the year, and so the OPW were asked to find suitable temporary premises in the meantime, as ‘the Minister feels that he could not be responsible for having the children concerned detained in the present House of Detention a moment longer than is absolutely essential’. The Department of Education were unsuccessful in their attempts to transfer management of it to a religious Order.

Almost 10 years later, in July, a member of the Kennedy Committee, Mr MacConchradha, who was a civil servant with the Department of Justice, said that when a Sub-Committee of the Committee visited Marlborough House ‘they nearly lost their lives’. He added: ‘The building is tottering, there is virtually no activity, educational or recreational, and the staff are totally unsuitable’. The Kennedy Committee in July 1969, a year before it published its final report, made a special interim submission to the Minister of Education that Marlborough House should be closed ‘forthwith’, as the building was in ‘an extremely bad state of repair and, indeed, appears to be in imminent danger of collapse’.

An Assistant Secretary with the Department of Education wrote to the Department of Justice on 23rd July 1969, seeking to transfer the place of detention at Marlborough House temporarily to a prefabricated building at the open prison at Shanganagh Castle, pending the completion of the remand centre in Finglas. The Department of Justice rejected this proposal outright.

Throughout 1971, senior officials from the Department of Education and the Department of Justice held meetings to discuss the closure of Marlborough House, the finding of alternative premises and, the opening of the centre at Finglas. At each meeting, it was agreed that Marlborough House should be closed, but there were delays in completing the construction of the centre at Finglas, which was compounded by the fact that the De La Salle Order did not want to take remand cases, all of which resulted in no action, and Marlborough House remained open.

A conference was held in Leinster House on 8th July 1971 which was attended by both the Ministers for Education and Justice, together with their officials. The Minister for Justice was very critical of the Department of Education’s handling of Marlborough House: ‘... there had been total neglect of the Marlboro House establishment: staffing had been obtained from among Labour Exchange undesirables: young children were left in their care when it was known that they indulged in brutality: he himself had inspected the place and had been appalled at conditions ...’. He added: ‘... it was very late in the day for the Department of Education to look for any sharing of responsibility in the operation of the establishment’. Following this conference, an official in the Department of Education contacted the Department of Justice with a view to setting up a Working Party in relation to Marlborough House. An internal Department of Justice memorandum informed the Department of Education unequivocally that there would be no Working Party and that ‘Marlborough House is not a matter for the Minister for Justice nor one in which he can be involved’. He added: ‘I felt that I should make it plain to him that in this Department it is believed that the Department of Education is endeavouring to involve this Department in something which is not its concern’. Mr James Martin, Assistant Secretary with the Department of Justice, at the Phase III hearing, said: ‘... they had views that the Department of Education should be more active but they were not going to take over that role themselves’.

Matters reached a critical level when, on 6th September 1971, the OPW informed the Department of Education, the Department of Justice and the Department of Finance that Marlborough House was on the verge of collapsing: Our Architect has inspected these premises and reports a possibility of imminent collapse of the building, due to dry rot and defective floors. It is imperative that the building be vacated immediately.

A retired High Court Judge, Mr Justice Kingsmill-Moore, visited Marlborough House in October 1971. Initially, the Department of Education were reluctant to allow this, as they thought ‘that no useful purpose would be served by his visit’. They re-considered the matter and gave him permission, but felt that ‘an officer of the Department should accompany him to explain matters. It would not be wise that he should get his explanations from the people now in charge of Marlborough House’. Mr Justice Kingsmill-Moore reported his observations on Marlborough House to the Minister for Education in a letter of 27th October 1971. He said: ... Marlborough House is frankly, appalling. If you could spare ten minutes of your time to visit it, I am sure you would be deeply shocked. For the moment I will only say that owing to the covering of the windows by various materials, including a kind of brown glaze, and quite inadequate electrical lighting, the boys are in an atmosphere of gloom which must be physically and psychologically damaging; that their only seating accommodation is forms, of which there are not enough to provide seats for all the boys; and that there is no form of occupation except watching television in the evening. The general condition of the place can only be appreciated by a personal inspection.

The contention in the Opening Submission for Artane was that emotional needs were not considered at all in the caring of children, because such needs were not recognised in society as a whole. It was clear, however, from the Cussen Report which was published in 1936, and even from earlier Department of Education23 Annual Reports dating back to 1926, that the vulnerability of children who were removed from their parents and placed in care was recognised and understood well before the 1940s. These reports advocated the requirement for something more than mere physical care.

The 1926 Department of Education Report stated: When children have to depend entirely on a school for what their homes should give them, much more than efficient instruction and material comfort is of importance, and it will be obvious that, apart from arrangements for education and physical wants, there is good reason to avoid any exaction of a hard and fast uniformity in other phases of school activity and to encourage whatever may relieve the institutional features of such schools.24

The Congregation correctly pointed out that an emphasis on physical care was echoed in the Department of Education inspections. The inspection reports dealt with material and physical aspects of the care of the children with little mention of their emotional well-being. Emotional well-being could have been assessed by talking to the children and the Department Inspectors did not generally do this.