4,228 entries for Finance

It is not until 1982 that background information is reported separately in specific regard to the family structure of children in care. While being the child of a ‘one parent family unable to cope’ was still the single largest reason for being placed in care (37 percent), the number of children placed in care for this reason actually decreased by 10 percent from the 1981 figure. The report further grouped children into three ‘status’ categories: ‘legitimate’; ‘illegitimate’; and, ‘extra-marital’.108 A little more than half of children in care during 1982 were recorded as legitimate (57 percent), and tended to be placed in long-term residential care (46 percent of all legitimate children). On the other hand, children who were categorised as ‘illegitimate’ or ‘extra-marital’ tended to be placed in long-term foster care (44 percent and 66 percent respectively). Interestingly, around 10 percent of all ‘Illegitimate’ children were placed in private foster care compared to less than 1 percent of either ‘legitimate’ or ‘extra-marital’ children.

By 1984 these categories had once again changed and children were either recorded as ‘children of married parents’, ‘children of unmarried parents’ or ‘children of married women where husband is not father’. Children of ‘one parent families unable to cope’ still represented around a third of children in care. The 1985 report continues in the use of these categories and is the last report published until 1989. In the Department of Health report on children in the care of Health Boards for 1989 the specific focus on ‘unmarried mothers’ is not as evident as in previous years. Instead, the more inclusive language of ‘one parent unmarried’ is used; according to the report, this ‘means an unmarried mother or father who is not living with a partner’. Significantly, this is also the first year that the category of parents deemed ‘unable to cope’ (still the largest group at 31 percent) are not specifically identified as unmarried or single parents. The categories used are then consistent for the next three years until 1993 when, once again, a three-year gap in annual reporting occurs. When the next annual report was finally published again in 1996 the term ‘lone parent’ had come into use and ‘parental illness’ had been combined into the ‘parents unable to cope’ category of principal reasons for admission to care. Despite these changes, it remained that around a third (32.96 percent) of children were taken into care for this reason.

There is no data for 1997 but the 1998 report indicates that the percentage of children from lone parent families increased to almost 40 per cent (38.58 percent). Also, worth noting is that this is the first year that ‘parent unable to cope’ (26.58 percent) was not the dominant reason for children being admitted to care; ‘neglect’ (26.71 percent) accounted for slightly more cases (five more children and a difference of less than half a percentage point). The term lone parent has been further qualified in recent years (since 2002) to highlight the distinct group of lone parents who are unmarried as opposed to divorced or widowed. In 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available on children in care from the Department of Health, 2,221 or almost half (43 percent) of children in care that year came from ‘lone parent, unmarried’ families.109

From the 1920s to the early 1950s there were in excess of 8,000 children in various forms of residential care (Industrial Schools, Reformatory Schools, Approved Schools/institutions and private orphanages) and a further 4,000 children, either boarded-out (public foster care) or at nurse (private foster care). During the mid-1950s, the numbers in alternative care dropped rapidly and by the end of the 1960s, there were just over 1,200 children boarded-out or at nurse and approximately 3,000 in various forms of residential care. The trend towards the decline in the number of children in care (defined as children in various forms of foster care and residential care) continued throughout the early to mid-1970s, but increased somewhat in the late 1970s. A decline was evident again in the early 1980s, but the number of children in care has been rising steadily since the mid-1980s, with currently over 5,000 children in State care. While the overall number of children in care grew from the mid-1980s onwards, the type of care placement shifted decisively from residential care to foster care. By 1980, there were slightly more children in foster care than residential care; in contrast, currently 84 percent of all children in care in foster care (including relative care). Put simply, while the overall numbers of children in care have increased, the role of residential care has become increasingly atypical and specialised while foster care has moved to a position of dominance in the provision of alternative care for children.

Also worth noting, is that the numbers of children entering care were relatively stable during the late 1970s and 1980s, but quite suddenly grew dramatically in the mid-1990s. The reasons for this are unclear, but in part reflect the gradual implementation of the Child Care Act 1991 and the increase in the number of social workers. Certainly, a substantial increase is recorded in the number of children entering care for reasons of ‘neglect’, from over 600 in 1992 to over 1,400 in 2005, which reflected growing awareness of different forms of child abuse during this period. The legal basis for children in care shifted substantially in the late 1980s, with slightly more children in care on the basis of a care order than on a voluntary basis. However, by 2000, a slight majority of children in care were there on a voluntary basis, but in recent years, the numbers are almost equal. In terms of gender, almost equal numbers of males and females are in substitute care.

As noted in section 1, the 1990s saw the establishment of a number of ‘high support’110 and ‘special care residential units’.111 In October 2005, there were 141 children’s residential centres, classified in descending order as either community based children’s residential services (93); hostels (14); high support (11); special arrangements (12); other (9) and special care unit (2).112 Reasonably detailed data113 is available for 2005, which shows that of those in residential care, 57 percent are in the old Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA) area or, in other words, the greater Dublin region. Since the 1970s, for most years in excess of half the children in residential care were in this functional area.

Although the decline in residential care was as equally dramatic as the decline in foster care in the late 1960s – early 1970s, the numbers in residential care have continued to decline, whilst foster care has shown a dramatic increase over the past 30 years.114 The number of children in foster care increased from less than 1,500 in 1970 to over 4,500 by 2006. Part of the reason for the sustained increase in foster care is the decline in the number of children available for adoption.

The total number of children in Special Schools has dropped substantially over the past 35 years, from 255 in 1971 to a mere 80 in 2005. This drop has been particularly pronounced over the past decade.115 One of the possible reasons for the decline in the numbers in Special Schools, particularly in recent years, is the numbers of young people dealt with under the Diversion Scheme operated by An Garda Síochána, with the number of young people cautioned under the scheme rising from less than 7,000 in the early 1990s to nearly 17,000 by 2007.116 Whilst the number of children in residential care declined rapidly from the early 1970s, the number of young people committed on conviction to prisons and places of detention, having hit an all time low of 179 in 1963, increased each year until the early 1970s. The numbers declined and then stabilised until the late 1980s, when the numbers exceeded 800, but dropped rapidly to just fewer than 500 in 1991. The numbers then more than doubled to over 1,200 in 2001, and then once again declined to just over 800 in 2005, but increased in 2007 to 1,053.117 Young people now represent just over 16 percent of all committals on conviction, compared to 27 percent in the early 1970s. In terms of gender, female committals have declined from a high of nearly 15 percent of all committals under 21 to just fewer than 4 percent in 2005.118

Patterns in the provision of care for children have changed dramatically since the foundation of the Irish State. In general there has been an overall increase in the number of children in care over the past 35 years both in raw numbers and as a proportion (per 1,000 young people under 18), indicating a real growth in the number of children in care not attributable to a mere shift in demographic patterns. Residential care, once the dominant form of substitute care for children in the State, has been eclipsed by the use of foster care.119 Changes in legislation combined with an increase in the number of social workers and greater awareness of the needs of children have contributed to this situation. The number of children in Special Schools for Young Offenders, in particular, has decreased substantially over the past 35 years, while the number of young people (under 21) in prisons and places of custody have increased and decreased intermittently over the same period. It is worth noting the considerable challenges to the collation and interpretation of the figures presented here. Substantial variations in nomenclature, definitions and counting rules combined with a lack of detailed statistics and the transfer of responsibility between departments make what should be a rather straightforward exercise (mapping trends in the care of children over a relatively short 35-year period) into an arduous task.120

In 1965, in a report on social research in Ireland conducted by a United Nations Advisor to the Irish Committee on Social Research, included in the research needs identified the necessity for a ‘survey of children in institutions with a particular view to the reason for their institutionalization’ and ‘research into the methods of institutional and educational treatment and its effects’.121 In the same year, a survey team appointed by the Minister for Education to examine the Irish education system reported. In an appendix to the report they made reference to the Reformatory and Industrial Schools. In relation to the post-school career of those who left the schools, the survey team noted: it seems desirable to improve the placement service, perhaps by providing the schools with more information on employment opportunities. Efforts might also be made to improve the degree of supervision maintained during the two years after release. This is difficult but the provision of hostel accommodation (or of other suitable accommodation where the numbers did not warrant a hostel) would be a help in this regard.122

The survey team also noted the decline in the number of children in the schools and that most schools were operating under their capacity. While noting that the under-utilisation of schools could be viewed as an economic burden, the team also put forward the view that there was: an argument for tolerating rather more schools than the numbers would seem to warrant, on the grounds that schools of this type should be fairly small in order to maintain a personal relationship with each child. Also children should not be too far away from their parents and relatives – these schools are fairly widely scattered over the whole country. Nevertheless, it might be desirable to examine the possibility of closing some, particularly as the numbers in care have been declining fairly steadily in recent years.123

More generally, the publication in 1966 of the White Paper on Health Services and their Further Development125 paved the way for a new administrative structure for the delivery of medical and health services in Ireland, including community care services, which in turn were to deliver social work services and particularly childcare services, within a system of regionalised health boards, thus replacing the existing county-based system. Although 1965 is taken as the starting point for this paper on the basis that a consensus was clearly emerging as to the desirability for shifting the focus of the child welfare system and the limitations of the existing system of residential care, a number of reports prior to this date had highlighted these issues. A non-exhaustive list includes the Commission on Youth Unemployment126 (1951), the Report of Joint Committee on Vandalism and Juvenile Delinquency127 (1958), Captain Peader Cowan’s pamphlet on Reformatory and Industrial Schools (1960) 128 and the Inter-departmental Committee on the Treatment of Crime and Prevention of Delinquency (1962).129 For many commentators, it was the publication of a report by the think-tank Tuairim that hastened the process of change in this area.130

The London branch of the organisation produced this report, published on 12th January 1966. The core recommendation of the branch was that: the 1908 Children Act has out-lived its usefulness and that it should be superseded by an entirely new Children Act which would take into account the present needs of Irish society and contemporary theory and methods of child care and protection.

In addition, the report recommended that: All child care services should be co-ordinated in a single government department which would administer a subsidiary children’s department. We have considered the claims of the Department of Education, the Department of Health, the Department of Justice and the Department of Social Welfare and have concluded that the Department of Health would be the most appropriate department to undertake this work...131

The Tuairim Report also examined private voluntary homes for children, noting that there were 23 homes that they were aware of, 13 managed by religious Orders, catering for nearly 1,000 children. They noted that the informal system by which children were admitted to these homes had the advantage of bypassing the courts system, but that the danger existed that ‘illegitimate children may be dumped and conveniently forgotten’ there.132 In commenting on the Tuairim report, the Reformatory and Industrial Schools branch of the Department of Education observed: ‘It seems on the whole to have been compiled objectively though marred by a cheap jibe and untrue jibe at Irish.’133 The Department acknowledged that the system was in need as a complete overhaul and that: ...the majority of the faults found with the reformatory and industrial schools system are soundly based and confirmed by my experience. They highlight the necessity for a complete review and overhaul of the entire system in operation for the care of children who lack proper guardianship, including delinquents, many of whom such as families of distressed mothers and widows could be better cared for at less expense to the state without splitting up the family. The low grants given to these institutions compare very unfavourably with those given in most, if not all other European countries and pressure for increased grants in recent years has come mainly from the conductors of the boys’ schools as the majority of the girls schools are conducted by communities who engage in other activities the gains from which offset the losses on industrial schools. Virtually all the convent schools are will-nigh excellent, the glaring defect in the senior boys’ schools being the lack of the female hand in the domestic service. In the whole system the most serious defect is the absence of official after-care machinery. Secondly the operation of the domestic services in the senior boys schools should be undertaken by nuns or female lay staff.