884 entries for Government Department

The Congregation criticised Mazars for failing to take note of the findings of the Kennedy Commission (1970), the Tuairim report (1966), and the Department of Education submission to this Committee. All submitted that the funding to Industrial Schools was inadequate. However, both of these reports were written at a time when numbers had fallen so dramatically that the system of funding, based on capitation, was under pressure. Even at this time, the payment per child was reasonable but the costs of keeping the institutions open for smaller numbers was becoming more burdensome and was taking an increasing amount out of the maintenance grant. The Department of Education acknowledged to the Committee that they had not conducted any investigation into the rates of capitation but had simply relied on the Kennedy and Tuairim reports and on the correspondence with the Resident Managers’ Association through the years.

The purpose of the residential school system was that the State and religious Orders would act in partnership in providing care to poor and destitute children. The Religious would raise donations for the establishment and upkeep of the schools and the State would pay to maintain the children. By the time the Department of Education took over the running of these schools and by the start of the period examined by the Investigation Committee, this dual role had become blurred for a number of Congregations. Most religious Orders did not seek public subscription for the premises used as residential homes and used the capitation grant to enhance and improve them. It is difficult to establish what effect, if any, this had on the funds available for the children and it varied from school to school.

It is not clear that the cost to the State of paying all the Brothers in the institution a stipend was fully understood by the Department of Education or the Department of Finance at the time. As was shown in the historical section of this chapter, no proper breakdown of this figure was submitted to the Department in the 1940s or 1950s and no reference appears to have been made to it by the Department in its communications with the Resident Managers’ Association when discussing increases in grants.

Full itemised accounts should have been available to the Department of Education clearly outlining the expenditure of the State grant. These accounts would have helped form a more accurate view of the financial aspects of these schools if they had been preserved by the Congregations.

A Department of Education Report prepared in 1955 stated that the farm was making profits and that there was no evidence that these profits were being ploughed back into the school. Mazars concluded: The views of the Department Official are not consistent with the record in the financial statements, which show an overall deficit from the farm. We have not been able to identify a reason for this inconsistency.41

As to capital expenditure, the terms of the lease required the Oblates to keep the premises in suitable repair, and documentation from the Department of Finance indicated that the capitation grant was sufficient to meet this expenditure. The State was responsible for all items of capital expenditure from 1940-69. Despite the significant capital investment in Daingean in the period 1939-69, Department of Education records indicate that Daingean was not in a good state of repair. Correspondence between the OPW and Departments of Finance and Education in 1969 and the early 1970s indicates that certain buildings in Daingean were ‘structurally unsound’. A visit paid by an official of the Department of Education in 1967 echoes this view of the state of repair, referring to the premises being ‘in a bad state ........... should be demolished’42

Significantly, the case referred to in this letter seems to have gone unreported also by the other newspapers. Likewise, when in January 1951, an attendant employed at Marlborough House (not an Industrial School, but a place of detention, run by the Department of Education) was convicted of sexually abusing two boys detained in the institution, there were no newspaper reports.

The lack of interest generally is evident in a response by the Department of Education to a question from the Commission stating that it had found no records referring to The Irish Times articles on child delinquency in 1950. This is consistent with an expectation that there would be no interest in the matter among the electorate or public representatives. Otherwise, it would have been expected that cuttings would be kept and a defence dossier compiled.

Between 1970-74, the Minister for Justice was Des O’Malley (as it happens Donagh O’Malley’s nephew and the inheritor of his Dail seat). In an interview in 2002, Mr O’Malley told Dr Keating that he was concerned about the Industrial and Reformatory Schools sector, in part because of the general public erroneous belief that it was the responsibility of the Department of Justice. A few months after taking office as Minister for Justice, Mr O’Malley happened to take a family holiday in North Connemara near Letterfrack and heard and observed personally a certain amount about that institution. On his return to Dublin, he made some inquiries and was told by the Secretary of the Department to ‘leave it to Education’. 71

The Department was concerned about this problem.77 One way that it could use to ease the problem was in making transfer orders from junior to senior boys’ schools when boys were aged 10 years, on which occasion the Department could select Schools close to Dublin. In addition, there might be exceptional transfers, at other ages, including transfers to Dublin on emotional grounds.

Generally, the Schools opposed leave.82 A letter from the Resident Managers Association to the Department of Education of 7th June 1949, responding to a proposal, which was not adopted, to extend home leave to six weeks, stated that 37 of the 44 Schools who replied were opposed to the increase: It was pointed out that when the children return from Home Leave there is always a marked disimprovement in manners and conduct; they are often very discontented. All this is highly detrimental to the general spirit of the School, and it takes the children quite a long time to settle down again to the ordinary routine. Numbers of them return ill fed and sickly, in an unkempt condition, with clothes in a filthy condition. It takes weeks to get rid of the vermin. Sometimes their language is vile. Industrial School children generally belong to the poorest families and the home conditions are often most unsuitable and undesirable... A high percentage of these children are illegitimate and the mothers are not just what they should be; others have been the victims of circumstances getting into trouble because parents or guardians failed to exercise proper control... It was also said that children who could with safety be allowed six weeks Home Leave should not be in any Industrial School; they should be discharged to their homes and not allowed to be living on public money.

The Department wrote to Br Quinlan, Provincial of the Christian Brothers.87 At the moment there are over 250 senior boys from Dublin City and County in country industrial schools, and about 23 boys in the junior schools (all of the latter are situated outside the Dublin area). Many of the latter boys are due for removal to senior schools in the near future, and a large proportion of them may be regarded as having a claim to vacancies in Artane and Carriglea by reason of the fact that they already have brothers there and that their parents or relatives live in the Dublin areas. Owing to the distribution of the other industrial schools for boys it would be most convenient if the new school was situated to the north rather than the south of Dublin city, as it could thus absorb committals from the counties of Cavan, Monaghan, Louth, Meath etc, as well as Dublin.

There was little in the field of fundamental change. One of the few considerations of structural change is the following brief statement by T O’Raifeartaigh, Secretary of the Department of Education, on 15th March 1967 in an internal memo: One line of approach to the problem of the Industrial Schools is the provision of a Prevention Centre. The importance of the Prevention Centre will lie not only in the turning back the youngsters from their first steps in delinquency and the caring for innocent youngsters from broken homes, but also in that it will reduce considerably the number of children who will be committed to industrial schools. This raises the question of the second line of approach. It is that the industrial schools will in future have to devote themselves more to rehabilitation type of work. This will mean that they will have to organise the children into smaller groups and so have to employ a much larger staff of skilled personnel. The children will, learn by doing (as Senator Quinlan mentioned in the Seanad debate on ‘Investment in Education’). The maximum number in any institution should not exceed 250. The only school which accommodates more than 250 is Artane. The question of breaking up that school into smaller schools was recommended by the Commission of Inquiry 1934-36 but nothing came if it mainly due to the opposition of the conductors and the extra huge expenditure involved. I consider that in fact 250 is altogether too big a number for a school and that 50-100 would be the ideal number.

The Schools’ population peaked in the late 1940s and then there was a steady decline through the 1950s, which accelerated in the 1960s. In the light of the figures, the Department of Education noted, as early as 1951, that since 1945 there had been an average of 250 vacancies in the boys’ Schools. 89

Despite the obvious trend it took a long time for the Department to realise that the reduction in the Schools’ population was irreversible and consequently that certain of the Schools should close. The Christian Brothers discussed the possibility in 1954 at a Christian Brothers’ Managers Meeting,90 and the Department of Finance had read the figures accurately at least as early as 1955. In that year the subject was tentatively mentioned by the Secretary of the Department of Education in negotiations with representatives of the Schools. In a letter to the Minister of Finance on 21st January 1965, the Minister for Education 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.