884 entries for Government Department

In earlier decades, some individual trade unions seem to have had a policy of preventing employers from recognising such training, or counting it as part of apprenticeship, and giving jobs on the basis of it, thus in large measure rendering it pointless (Cussen Report, para 123). The trade unions were presumably protecting their members by upholding the traditional means of entry. However in 1968 the Department of Education was advised by the Department of Labour that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions was concerned that career guidance and apprenticeship training did not appear to be receiving sufficient attention in the schools judging by the attainments of the ex-pupils of Industrial Schools in later life. They recommended the establishment of fully trained career guidance officers and the re-assessment of apprenticeship training.

In 1952 at a meeting with representatives of the Department of Education and Justice McCarthy of the Dublin Metropolitan District Court, Fr Reidy, Resident Manager of Daingean, stated the there was ‘Not much done in aftercare’ and expressed his views as to why the boys had difficulty securing employment: Lads now are much lasier [sic] and more apathetic to work than 20 years ago. This problem is partly a result of social welfare schemes. (It is) important therefore to get them to work at anything at all.

Thirty years after the publication of the Cussen Report, a Department of Education memo to the Minister of Finance highlighted the lack of progress in the area of aftercare stated, ‘In general, with the exception of Artane, they (the schools) lack any kind of aftercare or organisation’.

Following Dr McCabe’s retirement in 1965 the Department of Education left the post of Medical Inspector unfilled until the appointment of Mr Graham Granville in 1976. In the intervening decade a number of changes took place. In the absence of a dedicated Medical Inspector, inspections were initially augmented by, and then replaced with, medical reports by medical officers retained by each individual school. From 1961 to 1963, these medical reports were submitted to the Department on a quarterly basis. From 1963 to 1978, the medical reports were submitted on a twice-yearly basis.

The Cussen Report (para 86) was critical of the inspection system operated by the Department of Education up to that point. Cussen described as ‘unsatisfactory’ the system of medical inspection in schools and urged that, in addition to the medical examination of children on admission, a periodic medical examination should be carried out by a doctor ‘specially trained in the diagnosis of children’s diseases, physical and mental’. In response, Dr Anna McCabe was appointed in April 1939. One part of the medical report was a checklist focussed on the health of individual children, with headings such as teeth, thyroid, nail biters, stammer, eyesight.

The annual reports of the Department of Education frequently refer to the fact that the medical inspector had viewed the quarterly medical reports kept by school Managers in consultation with the local medical officers. Furthermore, despite what appears as initial resistance to their use by some school Managers, Dr McCabe was able to cite evidence from medical records as proof of underfeeding in schools in the mid 1940s.

Official concern at conditions in the school – and also the incomplete character of the information available and perhaps a feeling of helplessness – was apparent from the response of the senior childcare officer in the Department of Health to the medical report of the death of a child in St Joseph’s Ferryhouse. She wrote: This shocking report confirms some unofficial information that I have had over the years concerning Ferryhouse...from what I have heard the ill treatment of the boys could do with investigation also. One person who spoke to me about this matter was an inspector of the ISPCC. It is scandalous that only the death of one of the boys has led to the conditions there coming to light.

The widespread underfeeding of children was of particular concern to Dr McCabe, who disagreed with the Cussen Report’s findings of 1936 that had described the diet of these children as ‘on the whole adequate.’ Dr McCabe instituted a system of revised diet scales, nutritional education and comprehensive medical charts recording the weight and height of each child, which she used as evidence of underfeeding in the schools. In a letter sent from the Department of Education to the Department of Finance, recognition is given to the value of correct medical records and stated that these charts ‘brought about a marked improvement’.

The Department did try to address the near-starvation level of diet during World War II. An attempt at serious thinking is shown in a letter of 13th January 1945 from the Assistant Secretary in the Department to the Minister for Finance. The Medical Inspector has stated time and again that the general standard of nutrition is too low. This grave state of affairs is due, to a degree, which varies depending on the individual School, to: 1.Inability to provide adequate quantities of food owing to the rise in prices; 2.Failure to do so owing to parsimony; and 3.Failure to provide a properly balanced diet (even when the quantity is adequate) owing to lack of training in the management if institutions for children and ignorance of fundamental deictic principles. As to (1), the payment of the State capitation grant on all committed children and the increase from 5s to 7s per week of the State and local authority grants for children under 6, (both changes took effect as from the1st of July last), have done something to ease the schools’ financial position. When pressed to improve diet, however, managers complain continually that they cannot afford to do so, or that they can do so only by economising elsewhere e.g. in clothing. The Association of Managers has applied for an emergency bonus of 5s per week per child. There is no doubt that the schools, particularly the smaller ones and those that have no farms or very small ones have a case for an emergency increase in their income if they are to be compelled to maintain, and in many cases, to improve upon, their pre-war standards of food and clothing. As to (2), the strongest possible action has been taken in all cases where the Department was satisfied that parsimony was the predominant cause of gross malnutrition. Two resident managers have been removed from office at the request of the Minister for Education. Others have been solemnly warned and will be removed in due course if there is no adequate improvement. (in one such case in Co. Cork the warning was given personally by the Secretary of the Department accompanied by the Inspector of Reformatory and industrial Schools.) As to (3), this is a contributory cause of malnutrition in all schools, particularly those conducted by nuns, and an effort to eradicate it is an essential part of the general attack on malnutrition. It is proposed to have a course in institutional management next summer and to invite the Sister or Sisters in charge of the catering in each of the 43 schools conducted by nuns to attend. The City of Dublin Vocational Committee will be asked to conduct the course in Coláiste Muire la Tigheas, Cathal Brugha Street, and to make available the services of professors on their staff who are highly skilled in those subjects. From preliminary discussions between officers of the Committee and the Department it has been ascertained that the course could be specially designed to suit the actual conditions existing in the schools. It would deal with fundamentals of institutional cookery as applied to industrial schools needs, on costing, storage, and preparation of foodstuff. In addition, the Department’s Medical Inspector would avail of the opportunity to give some lecture on balance in diet, hygiene, etc. The course should last for four weeks. Having regard to the background out of which this proposal emerges persistent pressure by the Department on the schools to spend more money on food and constant complaints from the schools that they cannot afford to do so it will be clear that the course must not involve the schools in any expense if there is to be a reasonable prospect of securing their cooperation. It is proposed to make a grant of £9 towards the expense of each nuns travelling expenses, £6 for four weeks hostel expenses in Dublin, and £1 for materials and part maintenance (they will eat the meals they prepare). Nuns from Dublin City schools would receive the grant of £1 only.

The Resident Managers often ascribed failings on their part with regard to the shelter and diet of the children to the inadequate funding received from the Department. The unavailability of funds was proffered as an excuse by both the Department of Education and the Resident Managers, in response to many of the weaknesses cited in the inspection reports. Consequently, Dr McCabe’s work was hampered by the ongoing capitation negotiations between the Congregations and the Departments of Education and Finance. At the end of her period in office in 1964, she wrote: I am constantly pressing for further improvements but I am met with the same query from all concerned ‘Where is the money to come from’... This state of affairs puts me in a very invidious position as I am unable to have the further improvements envisaged by me implemented.

The schools’ population peaked in the late 1940s. There was a steady decline in numbers through the 1950s and the process accelerated in the 1960s. The Department of Education noted as early as 1951 that since 1945 there had been an average of 250 vacancies in the Boys’ Schools.

In 1955, the subject of closure was tentatively mentioned by the Secretary of the Department of Education in negotiations with representatives of the schools. In a letter from the Minister for Education to the Minister for Finance on 21st January 1965, the former noted ruefully that Finance had been urging closures for years and then continued: Naturally your main concern is economy while mine is the upbringing of children. Certain aspects of the matter of transferring children to other schools have to be carefully considered. Many children have god-parents in their school localities and quite a number of children attend schools, national, secondary and vocational outside the industrial school. It may not be possible to accommodate such children suitably if transferred to another district.

Both the public and the authorities began to lose confidence in the Industrial School system at the same time. The Christian Brothers believed the ‘public had turned against them’, the image of the schools having being damaged by ‘negative newspaper and television coverage ... and by criticism from professional sociologists, [and even from] the clergy and the bishops’. The Christian Brothers referred also to ‘Authorities charged with improving social matters’, who they felt had become ‘hostile to schools such as Artane... County Councils, the Department of Health and those various organisations involved with the care of children would prefer to put them in foster homes or with families, anywhere but in institutions such as Artane’.

In 1961 one of a set of national surveys, a wide-ranging study of Irish education and training by economic experts, was prepared by officials from the Department of Education in cooperation with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), under the chairmanship of the economist and ex-civil servant, Professor Patrick Lynch. It included a section dealing with the treatment of children in detention. This section criticised the operation of the schools attributing many of their defects to the inadequacy of the capitation grant and also the substantial surplus capacity within the schools, especially the girls schools, where there was only 37 percent utilisation of space.

The Tuairim Report of 1966 was another harbinger of change and bookmarked a change in thinking within the Department. Tuairim was a private group interested in publishing ideas for practical, social or governmental reform. One of its best-known reports entitled ‘Some of our children’ evaluated the certified schools system in Ireland. In some ways its content also anticipated that of the Kennedy Report. The Tuairim Report drew attention to the ‘failure to implement, other than a few’, the recommendations of the Cussen Commission. The Department of Education concurred with a number of Tuairim’s findings and stated in an internal memo ‘it is true that the whole system is in need of complete overhaul’.