4,228 entries for Historical Context

In March 1971, the Council for Social Welfare189 organised a seminar in Killarney, to discuss the implications of the Kennedy report. In an overview paper, Sr Winifred was broadly positive of both the analysis and the recommendations in the Report.

However, she did highlight that: there is not one word of appreciation or even commendation of the work done by voluntary bodies. We are told in the report if it were not for the dedicated work of many of our religious bodies the position would be a great deal worse than it is now! Talk about damning by faint praise. The one stark and most obvious fact in the situation is nowhere stated. Just how could any body, voluntary or statutory, be expected to provide a skilled and humane service on the pittance granted by the State?190

In her address to the seminar, Sr Stanislaus Kennedy highlighted what she claimed was a general lack of confidence amongst the Religious providing childcare services. This lack of confidence, she asserted, was: due in no small way to newspaper articles and TV programmes written and produced with inaccurate data or little insight into the nature of the life of the people whom they analyse, and sometimes hold up to ridicule. Criticism of the religious, especially the nun, by both clergy and laity is a popular sport, and can be quite devastating. We are out of date, immature personalities, when we are given credit for having any personality at all. Our attitudes to life, sex, to literature are out of touch and archaic. Our child care standards are low and our living standards are high. We give our children too much, or else we give them too little. Each of us could add to this litany of comments we have heard. Feedback of this nature is shaking the confidence of the religious, and they are understandably sensitive.191

In his contribution to the seminar, Mr Antoin O’Gorman, a member of the Kennedy Committee, responded to the points raised above about the role of the Religious in childcare, stated: I think it is right and appropriate to mention that the Committee did state clearly and sincerely that in point(ing) out limitations in the systems of Reformatory and Industrial Schools it was not the intention of the Committee to criticise those responsible for running the schools. Another matter which I think should be stated is that it was not the stated intention either explicitly or implicitly that religious should cease to participate in the work or to run the homes and schools.192

In April 1971, the Association of Resident Managers of Reformatory and Industrial Schools responded to the Committee of Enquiry’s Report. It described the Report as ‘an important event in the history of child care in Ireland’193 and went on to state that the report: emphasised community responsibility in the matter and revealed the extent to which the community directly and through Government had failed to provide the support required by those within the system to attain the standards for which they strove....Media coverage following the publication of the Kennedy Report emphasised the shortcomings of the system, and in general it appears that much of the good work done and being done was overlooked or misunderstood by the public at large. This is considered to be unfortunate in that it provides a scapegoat and diverts attention from the central point that ultimately the community as a whole is responsible for the system and for its development to meet modern standards by modern means.

The response outlined how the Report was discussed by assembled Managers at three specially convened means and that each Manager prepared and submitted an individual report which was collated to form a composite report which was then approved by the Association. The submission noted: The Religious Orders wish to participate in the work and to contribute to the development of a better system. They welcome the Report of the Committee on Reformatory and Industrial Schools in that it emphasise the need for Government and community support. As this document shows, they are in agreement with the Report on many issues, and have themselves been advocating such changes for a very long time. They are dissatisfied with the system now in existence and feel they have tolerated for too long the lack of Government support and grossly inadequate financing. The Religious Orders involved in the field of Child Care wish to participate in the work but not necessarily to administer it, and they wish the Government to state without further delay their view on the role of religious in child care. The Association recommends the earliest possible establishment of an advisory body to co-ordinate the general effort, and proposes in the meantime to establish a voluntary advisory body representative of the Association and professional interests, to devote immediate attention to the areas of assessment, training, research and optimum use of existing facilities. The Association is prepared to make a positive contribution towards the establishment of a better system of Child Care in Ireland.

The detailed recommendations made by the managers are to be found in Appendix 2. In addition, later that year, on 30th September, they reported: The Association of Resident Managers of Industrial and Reformatory Schools have made it clear in a report to the Minister for Education their conviction that the community as a whole must more fully recognise its responsibility to provide an improved system to care for deprived children, and that a central co-ordinating authority with statutory powers is essential to the effective operation of the system. It is recognised by the Association that, at best, it will be many years before a statutory body can be formed, and they have decided in the meantime to establish an Advisory Council with powers to form executive committees who will conduct working programmes in agreed priority areas; who will advise the Association on ways and means of achieving the optimum utilisation of present resources, and how best to contribute to the development in Ireland of the best possible system of child care.194

The Eastern Health Board responded in July 1971 by enclosing the recommendations made by a number of personnel in the Eastern Health Board concerned with deprived children following a meeting in February of that year.195 The group noted that the report ‘did not deal with all children in care, but rather concentrated on children in Industrial and Reformatory Schools’, but nonetheless, they broadly agreed with the recommendations of the Report. They did however, have a number of observations on the recommendations. They noted: that there is a growing tendency to depart from the group home system in England because of the problem associated with operating a group home. Staffing problems present themselves, the hours of duty are a cause of concern to Trade Union Officials and the coming and going of staff members has the effect of subjecting the children to constant change, much to their detriment. It was felt that Group Homes have a part to play in a Child Care System but they not be accepted as recommended in the Report as the only form of Residential Care.

The meeting also agreed ‘that a good Child Care Worker’ would be the best person to undertake the task of after-care. It was noted that the Health Authority had no knowledge of the release of children who were committed through Dublin Corporation and the Department of Education and it was suggested that after-care for all children should be the responsibility of the authority. It was agreed that there is a great need for Hostels in the Dublin area, ‘particularly to accommodate boys’. In relation to the administration of the system, the group argued that: ‘responsibility for all aspects of Child Care should not be divided between the Department of Health and the Department of Education, but rather that total responsibility should rest with the Department of Health.’

In relation to residential care, the group ‘felt that the task of house-father and house mother may have to be left to the religious communities’ and that ‘consideration should be given to the concept of a new type of foster-parent who would take on the task as a regular working arrangement and be paid an appropriate salary by the Health Authority’. The group elaborated on this point arguing: ‘highly skilled women would be needed to undertake this arduous task. They should be the type who would not become emotionally involved with every child placed in their care, and they should be able to go looking after children, and accept the facts of the situation i.e. that the children will, at some stage, be taken from them’.

The group also agreed that ‘there is a need for some form of detention for teen-age girls’ and that there ‘should be a two-sided approach to the problem of prostitution (a) the prevention of young girls from setting out on such a career (b) the provision of an escape route for girls who genuinely wish to reform their lives’. On legal issues, the group noted ‘the defining of Health Authorities as “fit persons” will greatly increase the responsibilities of those Authorities. It is essential that they have the resources necessary to meet the added responsibilities thrust upon them.’

In addition, a few weeks later, on 5th August 1971, a deputation from the Eastern Health Board comprising the senior administrative officers of the Welfare Department, the Director of the Child Guidance Clinic in the Mater Hospital, the Chief Child Psychiatrist of the Board and the Section Officer of the Children’s Section met with representatives of the Department of Education in relation to accommodation for Dublin boys in Industrial Schools. The deputation highlighted that while 450 boys from Dublin were accommodated in Industrial Schools throughout the country, there were a further 90 to 100 boys for whom accommodation in Industrial Schools could not be found. The health board deputation claimed, ‘many of them are disturbed and the difficulty of getting schools to take many of them is resulting in their becoming a “hard core” of unwanted’. The Department of Education were of the view that this difficulty had largely arisen from the closure of the Artane Industrial School on 30th June 1969. However some spare capacity existed in the Salthill Industrial School in Galway and it was hoped that the opening of the new school in Finglas would alleviate some of the difficulties.196

The Department of Justice responded to the request for observations on the report on 20th April 1972. In relation to places of detention, they ‘considered that formal responsibility for providing places of detention for juveniles would be more appropriately exercised by your Department than by the Department of Justice which has heretofore had that formal responsibility as the successor to the “police authority” referred to in the Children Act, 1908’. Responding to criticisms made of St Patrick’s Institution and the aftercare of children leaving reformatory and industrial schools, they noted that improvements had been made to St Patrick’s since the preparation of the report and that the welfare service operated by the Department had expanded since the publication of the report with plans for further expansion.

Although not formally a response to the invitation issued by the Department of Education, Mr O’Mahony in an article in the Irish Jurist provided an overview, both of the Report and of the case law on residential care in Ireland. In relation to the latter he observed that: There is, perhaps unfortunately, a marked absence of reported decisions of the Irish courts on the provisions of the Children Acts dealing with residential care and the administrative and judicial procedures leading to it. This is somewhat surprising, and disquieting, particularly when one considers, in the light of the Irish Constitution, the wide scope of Section 58 of the 1908 Act (as amended) which gives statutory power to the Children’s Court to commit children, up to the age of 15 years, to long periods of detention in industrial schools for a variety of reasons far removed from the criminal law. Such a sense of disquiet is greater to-day if one accepts that the statutory definition of an ‘industrial school’ as being ‘a school for the industrial training of children in which children are lodged, clothed and fed as well as taught’ is not now, if it ever was, an accurate definition, and that a place of detention would be closer to reality.197

In relation to a core recommendation in the Kennedy Report and indeed a host of other reports that examined residential care in Ireland that the Children Act 1908 (as amended) should be replaced, Mr O’Mahony stated that: in the short term and from a strictly legal viewpoint, the case for a completely new Children Act is not as obvious as many would make it out to be. Clearly, if the immediate effect of an updating and consolidation of the law on this subject was the blotting-out of the past and the providing of inspiration for the future it could be argued for that reason alone new legislation would be worthwhile. However, there is, at present, sufficient statutory power to have most of the recommendations of the Kennedy Report put into effect, because basically these recommendations come down to, (i) new buildings, and (ii) training and research as to what is best for children in residential care. New buildings require money from the State (i.e., the Department of Education) and there is sufficient statutory power for this to be done. Training and research also require money and time but not necessarily immediate new legislation.198