884 entries for Government Department

This meeting took place on 13th December 1962. Dr Ó Raifeartaigh gave Fr Moore a very different reception to the one he received from Mr Berry and vigorously cross-examined him on the minutes of the November meeting. He accused Fr Moore of being inaccurate as regards certain salient facts and effectively suggested that he had a vendetta against the Christian Brothers. Fr Moore was shaken after the encounter, and wrote to the Archbishop the following day, informing him that the meeting had been ‘a most humiliating and embarrassing experience’. Mr Berry was quick to distance himself from the stance adopted by the Secretary of the Department of Education and wrote to the latter reproving him on his hostile interrogation of Fr Moore.

The upshot of the December meeting was that the Secretary of the Department of Education ordered an unannounced inspection of Artane by three senior Department personnel. They were requested to focus on food, clothing and management in general: ‘they should state the facts reasonably and with discretion – good and bad to be included’. The inspection took place over two days on 20th and 21st December and each inspector furnished a report.

The Department Inspection Reports on Artane were considered by the Inter-Departmental Committee in March and again in May 1963. The Committee ‘could not agree’ that the School had emerged commendably from the inspections, or that the praise accorded to the management was deserved. Mr MacDaibhid continued to assert that the criticisms noted in the MacUaid report were minor and were applicable to all industrial schools, although he did concede that there was a need for more money, which was true of industrial schools generally. Dr McCabe’s report on the School ‘was noted’. Ultimately, the Committee agreed to bring the criticisms noted by Mr MacUaid and recorded in the minutes of the March meeting to the attention of the Minister for Education.

The Committee also set out and approved general recommendations for change for industrial schools, many of which were influenced by the Moore and Department of Education inspections. The recommendations included the following: (1)The term ‘industrial school’ should be abolished. (2)Larger State grants should be made to industrial schools. (3)Inspections should take place more frequently. (4)Minimum standards regarding clothing, bedding etc should be prescribed by regulations. (5)Adequate financial provision should be set aside for maintenance, repairs and appropriate recreational facilities. (6)A matron/nurse should be appointed to each school. (7)City children should not be committed for lengthy periods to country institutions. (8)Firm links between institutions and the Probation Service should be established for the benefit of those leaving institutions. (9)Visiting Committees should be set up for each industrial school and, where appropriate, Aftercare Committees.

Although the Minister for Justice approved these recommendations, they were never implemented by the Department of Education which had that remit. Nevertheless, the proceedings of the Inter-Departmental Committee laid the foundations for the establishment of the Kennedy Committee in 1967.

He was aware that Archbishop McQuaid was very unhappy with the state of affairs in Artane. He was concerned about the vastness of the Institution. Fr Moore believed that the Archbishop’s disquiet regarding Artane was motivated by a deep concern for the children. In 1962, when he was asked by the Archbishop to write a report regarding Artane, he did not feel any pressure to colour his report in line with the Archbishop’s trenchant views. In fact, the Archbishop’s opinion mirrored his own experience of Artane after two years’ working there. Fr Moore had become involved in the area of aftercare, much to the annoyance of the Brothers, he said. He worked with a youth club for former Artane boys run by the Legion of Mary, which highlighted to him the deficiencies in the provision of aftercare by the Brothers. He understood his purpose in writing the report was to present a global picture of his experience of Artane. He became aware subsequently that the Archbishop stated in correspondence with the Department of Justice that he had appointed Fr Moore to set about reforming Artane.

The Moore report led to an unannounced two-day inspection of Artane by three Department of Education personnel. The Christian Brothers assert that this: inspection was extremely thorough and comprehensive and that there appears to have been a genuine effort on the part of those compiling the report to present an accurate account of all aspects of life in Artane.

Brothers and complainants confirmed that boys who ran away from the Institution were dealt with severely once caught. Absconding had to be reported to the Department of Education, and the Gardaí were often called on to assist in finding the child.

The detail contained in this list does not match the information in the Department of Education’s Annual Report entries. In 1959, six boys absconded from the School and did a considerable amount of damage to property and were removed after special court on 10th January 1959 to Daingean Reformatory. In 1959, the Visitor noted that ‘Since Christmas, 11 boys ran away at different times. Br Malleville has to take the car and follow them or that he got word from the Guards that they had been captured and that he had to collect them and sometimes was not home with them until 1.30 a.m’. What is very evident is the increasing level of absconding, particularly from the mid-1960s onwards.

Until 1954, the numbers in Letterfrack were reasonably high. From 1937 to 1955, the average number of boys in the Institution being paid for by the Department of Education was about 150. In addition, there were Health Board and voluntary admissions. For example, in 1954, Letterfrack received State grants for 147 boys, although there were 181 boys recorded in the School by the Visitor for that year. Those additional boys were paid for by the Health Boards and by voluntary contributions.

The Department Inspector does not seem to have engaged on the issue of food at all. She made no reference to the quantity of milk served, although this was an issue she raised in other schools. In 1943, she described the food as ‘an ample, well balanced and varied diet’.

In his letter to the Superior General, seeking the approval of the Superior Council for these proposals, Br O’Hanlon pointed out that ‘the Government does not seem to have any power to prevent us from giving effect to both proposals’. The General Council approved of the plans, and Letterfrack was nominated as the school which in future would house only juvenile offenders. The Department of Education was informed of these decisions by way of letter from Br O’Hanlon on 19th March 1954: The financial position of the Industrial Schools conducted by the Christian Brothers has been deteriorating over a number of years. One of the reasons for this deterioration is the continuous decline in number of boys being sent to these schools with consequent decline in income. I have examined the whole position of these schools with my Council and with the six Resident Managers, and I have decided that one of the six schools we control should be closed as an Industrial School. Carriglea Park School is the school which has been chosen for closing ... I wish, at the same time, to inform you that we have decided to introduce henceforth into our Industrial Schools a certain measure of segregation. We have decided to inform the Resident Managers of Artane, Glin, Tralee and Salthill (Galway) Industrial Schools that they are to take no more boys of the category, “charged with an offence punishable in the case of an adult with penal servitude”, but to refer the authorities to the Resident Manager of Letterfrack Industrial School in such cases. Likewise, the Resident Manager of Letterfrack will be directed to take boys of this category only, and to refer the authorities to the other four Resident Managers in the case of boys of other categories.

The Department and the District Justice objected strongly to the plan for Letterfrack, as it would essentially turn it into a reformatory. They argued it was too far from Dublin, where most of the boys came from, and their families, who were often a good influence on them, would find it very difficult and expensive to visit them.

The Department felt that the only real objection to the proposal was the distance of Letterfrack, Greenmount and Upton from Dublin, and the meeting concluded with a decision to take all possible steps to have non-delinquent children removed from Letterfrack before the majority in the school were delinquents.

The Minister for Justice requested the Minister for Education to make representations to the Christian Brothers in line with the Judge’s concerns. The Secretary of the Department of Education responded, stating that strong representations had been made to the Provincial Council, but to no avail. The matter was clearly out of the Government’s hands.