884 entries for Government Department
BackNoting that most of those working in Industrial Schools and Reformatories had little if any qualifications, the Report recommended: proper training, the transfer of administrative responsibility for childcare to the Department of Health, and the system of payment on a capitation basis to be replaced by a system based on agreed budgets so as to encourage improvement in the children’s circumstances. However the Committee’s major recommendation was that: The whole aim of the Child Care system should be geared towards the prevention of family breakdown and the problems consequent on it. The committal or admission of children to Residential Care should be considered only when there is no satisfactory alternative.
The Department of Education wrote to the Kennedy Committee to explain its procedures for dealing with complaints from the public: Upon receipt of a complaint from a parent or guardian about the treatment of a child in an industrial school, the Manager is furnished with a copy of the complaint and his observations are requested. Depending on the seriousness of the complaint the Inspector of Reformatory and Industrial schools will also interview the child and the school authorities and take appropriate action where necessary.
The Department also told the Committee it had ‘no complete record of all complaints received’ as many were of a ‘trivial nature’. It provided the Committee with nine examples of complaints received in the previous five years, all but two of which were deemed to be baseless. Mr Mac Uaid, an executive officer in the Department, wrote on another occasion: ‘Complaints about the treatment of children in industrial schools are not infrequent but from experience I would say that the majority are exaggerated and some even untrue.’
The Department’s submission to the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse summarised the situation: The procedure for dealing with parent’s complaints was to refer them to the Manager of the school for consideration and depending on the response of the Manager and the seriousness of the complaint to determine whether the matter should be pursued with the school management. There does not appear to have been a defined system of assessing the seriousness of a parental complaint and generally the Department did not interview the parent or child concerned... There is no indication that complaints supported by public representatives were taken more seriously than others.
The Department’s submission also stated: Where complaints were aired in the public media, the Department appears to have been concerned to protect the reputation of the school while privately addressing concerns with the religious order.
In 1996 the archives of the Reformatory and Industrial Schools were catalogued by an archives and records management company, at the behest of the Department of Education and the National Archives. The records relating to the schools were mostly kept in the basement of Talbot House, a building on the grounds of the Department of Education headquarters, Marlborough Street, Dublin. In April 1998 the company submitted its final report to the Department. It noted the poor storage conditions in which these sensitive documents were kept, so much so that documents had to be cleaned before cataloguing could begin. Its findings were: (1)Case files and registers: a total of 41,714 entries made in registers and case files there were no registers or case files for three schools. (2)Certification files: 72 entries in the certification files. (3)Administrative files: 792 entries in the administration files. (4) Miscellaneous registers 31 entries in the miscellaneous registers.
In 2004 Mr Noel Dempsey TD, the Minister for Education and Science, appointed Mr Matthias Kelly QC to conduct an independent review and report on the provision of discovery by the Department of Education and Science to the Commission. There was a particular background to this decision, which is explained at para 6 of Mr Kelly’s report: There has been criticism of the way in which the Department of Education and Science has handled the process of discovery of documents to the Commission. In the Third Interim Report, Ms Justice Laffoy recorded that the Commission were not satisfied that the department had complied fully with an order for discovery. There were concerns that the process of discovery was experiencing problems. It was against this background that I was asked to undertake this review.
The 3rd Interim Report by CICA describes how the Department of Education sent to the Commission a ‘Database of Former Residents of Reformatory and Industrial School’, containing approximately 42,000 entries of pupils who were committed by the courts to Reformatories and Industrial Schools during the allotted timeframe relevant to the Commission; however the database does not contain records of pupils placed in Industrial Schools by local authorities under the Public Assistance Acts or the Health Acts or voluntary placements. The Department should be in possession of 41,000 pupil files. However files exist relating to only 14,000 pupils, therefore 27,000 pupil files are missing. Of these 27,000 files, 18,000 relate to children who were admitted to institutions from 1936 onwards. From 1960 onwards the Department is in possession of virtually 100 percent of pupil records. Matthias Kelly concluded that these files were thrown out in the Department’s ‘general clear out’.
The precedent book was a record of decisions made relating to the certified schools system, catalogued in one place to allow for administrative ease. Mr Matthews, a former Assistant Secretary within the Department of Education, made reference to the existence of such a book in his evidence before the Commission. He stated that: the precedent book should still be there. No, there is no reason why it shouldn’t, because all the sections in the place, it was an essential feature of Government business, to know what the precedents were, just the same as in law.
This category refers to the general gaps in information regarding the Department of Education’s running of the Industrial Schools system. These files include certification files, general and medical inspection reports, internal Departmental memos, letters and general correspondence.
The Department of Education Statement to CICA in May 2006 stated: There are few cases of reported sexual abuse in the industrial and reformatory schools recorded in Departmental files (7 in all). We have no record of sexual of abuse issues surfacing during the course of normal inspections.
Ms Bridgid McManus, Secretary General of the Department of Education, gave evidence before CICA on 13th June 2006. In light of the absence of Departmental records relating to incidents of sexual abuse in the Industrial Schools and Reformatories over which the Department of Education presided, Ms McManus was asked if any efforts were made to ascertain from old employees, retired employees or even existing employees of the Department who worked in the relevant section, whether incidents of abuse may have been passed on to the Department, but were not reflected in the files. All senior administrative staff in the Department, at principal officer level and upward, and all existing and former Department inspectors were contacted. Following this line of questioning CICA was furnished with the responses received by the Department from former officials within the section; these responses did not give any information regarding undocumented cases of sexual abuse.
With regard to information ascertained from these efforts the Department of Education informed CICA that: While these interviews provided information in relation to the destruction in 1958/59 of some industrial and reformatory ledgers which predated the 1900s, they did not throw any light on any of the other matters mentioned above or on any particular arrangements for holding sensitive or confidential records in relation to incidents of abuse.
In September 1997, the Gardaí in Tullamore, County Offaly, wrote to the Department of Education (Primary Branch) informing them that Mr Brander, a former principal of Walsh Island National School, was the subject of a Garda investigation. The investigation related to incidents that took place during Mr Brander ’s time in Walsh Island. The Gardaí requested any information regarding complaints the Department may have received during the time in question. The Department stated that they conducted a ‘thorough search... Primary and Second Level Branches, but nothing came to light at the time’. In January 1998 a file containing papers relating to Mr Brander was discovered in Second Level Branch, Athlone. The papers included a letter, sent to the Department on 27th May 1982, by Mr Rothe who identified himself as a national teacher, living in Edenderry, alleging sexual abuse of boys by Mr Brander. Although a number of internal memos were found discussing a possible course of action, no reply to Mr Rothe was found amongst the papers.
TN030 is a Department of Education file titled ‘Meeting with Clonmel Authorities, Wednesday 04th December 1996’; the TN refers to the ‘Temporary Number’ assigned to this file. Contained within this file is correspondence between the Department of Education and Science and the Rosminian Order who operate St Joseph’s Special School, Ferryhouse, Clonmel. In particular it deals with a series of contacts from 1980-97 between Departmental officials and the institution and refers to incidents of child sexual abuse in the 1970s that are discussed in detail in Volume II Chapter 3.