4,228 entries for Historical Context

Having earlier considered the recommendations of the report, on 4th February 1972, Mr O’Sullivan drafted a commentary for Mr O’Rourke on the Kennedy Report. Acknowledging that the Department of Health had a representative on the Committee, he nonetheless went to say that: The report of the Committee could be criticised on the grounds that it has dealt with services outside the terms of reference prescribed for it by the Government. While the recommendations made by the Committee are in general exceedingly valuable, they may be questioned for example on the grounds that while the Committee dealt with Boarding-out for children, it had neither a Children’s Officer nor a health authority officer conversant with that field of activity, amongst its members. This may be the reason why the services administered by Health Authorities under the Health Acts, the Children’s Acts and the Adoption Acts (boarded-out and nursed out children etc.,) were not examined in the same detail as those available to children in Industrial and Reformatory Schools, although the total number of children dealt with by Health Authorities exceeds those dealt with by the Department of Education in their residential schools. Furthermore the Report does not give all the credit it might to the enlightened approach of many health authorities in this field.

The memo, having dealt with the inadequacies of the Report, noted that it had: made several fundamental recommendations aimed at providing an efficient and fully satisfactory care system for all children requiring it. The achievement of this objective will of necessity take many years, as it would involve the implementation of new legislation, the recruitment and training of staff, and considerable expenditure both on revenue and capital projects. The principal recommendation which affects this Department is one which suggests that administrative responsibility for all aspects of child care should be transferred to the Department of Health. The immediate effect of the implementation of this recommendation would be the handing over of administrative responsibility for 28 Industrial Schools, 3 Reformatory Schools and one Remand Home. A further recommendation made by the Devlin Committee199 and supported by the Committee on Reformatory and Industrial Schools is that the Department of Health should take over from the Department of Justice responsibility for adoption work.

Mr O’Sullivan went on to state that: Ideally child welfare services should as far as possible be planned and be subject to supervision by one Department, to ensure that they are looked at in a comprehensive way and also to ensure there is no conflict in aims which may very well arise if the services are the responsibility of different Departments. Child care is but one aspect of family care and a proper family care service would in fact tend to eliminate the need for taking many children into residential care -e.g. children from broken homes or children whose mothers must go into hospital for short-term care. Similarly, it is not satisfactory to isolate the residential schools aspect of child care from the facilities provided for the community care of the child. For example the need to have a child committed to an Industrial School should be considered in the light of the ability of the mother or other member of the family to care for it in its own home, supported, where necessary, by ancillary services, including day nurseries. While Health Authorities avail of the accommodation provided in Industrial Schools this Department has no control, no legal right of entry to inspect the Schools. It seems to be that good grounds exist for having all social aspects of child care including crèches, day nurseries, boarding-out, residential care and adoption dealt with by the one Department. As it is not really feasible nor indeed desirable to separate child care from family care and as the latter seems to be a field in which the Department is becoming more and more involved it would seem logical that we should agree with the recommendations of the Reformatory and Industrial Schools Committee that all aspects of child care should be dealt with by this Department. The Department of Education would, however, continue to have control of the educational aspects affecting the Schools.

While acknowledging the desirability of such an administrative change, he went on to note: ..it is equally clear that this Department is not in a position to assume responsibility for all aspects of child care, including residential care, until an adequate staff (both at professional and administrative level) becomes available to provide a proper service. No real improvement will be effected in the existing services merely by transferring functions relating to Industrial Schools etc., to this Department. 1. Adequate staff (a) Departmental – both professional and administrative. The Report recommends that establishment of a child care division in the Dept! (b) In the field – Health board staff providing child care services must be recruited in sufficient numbers and appropriately trained. This applies also to staff of voluntary agencies active in child care. 2. Adequate Services (a) (missing) (b) Residential schools and children’s homes must be modernised where necessary, and their role must be more closely linked with the necessary community services provided. (c) Services for day care of children require considerable expansion. (d) After care services, including advisory services, placement in employment, provision of hostel or other accommodation must be expanded. Unless control of these developments rests with one Government Agency, progress in child care will tend to remain uncoordinated as at present and will also be slow and haphazard.

The memo concluded by arguing: I feel that there is not much point in commenting on the very many other recommendations made by the Committee until a decision is first taken on whether this Department will have overall responsibility for the Residential Schools. The recommendations are, however, in general acceptable, but I would have reservations about the establishment of a Statutory Advisory Committee as suggested in the Report, which would act as a ‘watchdog committee’, to encourage the training of staff and the undertaking of research and publicity. If the other recommendations of the Committee are to be implemented, I would feel a better approach would be the establishment of a working group representative of the Departments concerned, the Health Boards and the organisations active in the field of child care, to consider existing legislation, to examine developments abroad, and to advise on the broad lines of legislation which might be developed here. This group would also be useful in that it would give an opportunity to the various voluntary organisations to air their views at the formative stage of legislation on certain controversial aspects of child care which are bound to arise, e.g. the question of compulsory notification of both legitimate and illegitimate children placed in residential care for reward or not. Finally, I would recommend that officers of the Department of Education should be invited to discuss the report with officers of this Department, if there is a difference of opinion between the two Departments as to who should be responsible for industrial schools.

Mr O’Rourke in his response to this memo stated that he had: some misgivings about the transfer of responsibility in relation to special schools and remand homes for those aged 15 and upwards to what is described in the report as a child care division. Nevertheless, I would accept that on balance the advantage lies in placing, in the one Department, administrative responsibility for various aspects of the care of deprived children mentioned in the report and on the whole my personal view would be that this recommendation is acceptable in principle. I would hope, however, that when the matter comes to be considered at Government level, it would be fully apparent that the radical improvement in services for deprived children suggested in this report is going to cost a great deal of money. Much of the expenditure will be on proper staffing and training and because of its nature will involve heavy revenue costs. There will also, if many of the report’s recommendations are accepted, be considerable capital expenditure involved on such residential homes and special schools will be continue to be needed even if an adequate level of prevention services is built up. It would highly undesirable, in my opinion that an impression should be given that these proposals are to be accepted in principle unless there is at the same time a definite commitment to capital and revenue expenditure of an amount adequate to implement the recommendations.

He concluded by stating: I would like to emphasise that in my opinion there can be no question of administrative responsibility for the services mentioned in this report being transferred to this Department without the establishment of a special division to undertake the reform of the services for deprived children...Unless there is an unequivocal commitment to providing the financial and staffing resources required to implement a reform programme in this field it would, in my opinion, be better to put the report away.

In November 1971, the journalist Nell McCafferty, in an article in the Irish Times, noted that a year had passed since the publication of the Kennedy Report and posed the question ‘Just what has been done about the Kennedy Report?’ Her answer was that the report contained 13 recommendations and that ‘the Government has taken action on one part of one recommendation, relating to the training of staff responsible for child care. A one month residential course for senior personnel was held in Dublin in July. Otherwise, nothing. It’s been a grim year for children.’200

In July and August 1971, a deputation from the Department of Education visited the Daingean Reformatory and the Salthill, Letterfrack and Clonmel Industrial Schools.

The stated purpose of the visit was ‘a contribution towards an attempt at arriving at some tentative conclusions and recommendations....in the context of considerations for a reorganised and modernised system of Industrial and reformatory Schools’.

A number of difficulties with the children described as ‘uncontrollable’ and ‘fire-bugs’ were identified by the manager of Daingean, Fr McGonagle, who stated that he was unwilling to accept such children for any period of detention. The delegation concluded from this: It needs to be stated that the present situation appears to be highly unsatisfactory. A boy who will not be accepted by the manager of Daingean or Letterfrack (and Clonmel, which is still more inappropriate for such a type of child) either has to be set free on probation or sent for one-month to Marlborough House (or to St. Patrick’s201, if 16 years of age – or to prison in certain circumstances, if he is 15 years of age). Such boys committed to Daingean or Letterfrack get to realise that the shortest route to release is to behave in such a way as lends to their again being brought before the Courts for a further offences and being committed to Marlborough House or being released on a suspended sentence. We mentioned tentatively to Fr. McGonagle the possibility of the provision of such a suitable secure unit in connection with the new Reformatory School in Oberstown. The boys in it would be separate from the boys in the Reformatory School and a separate programme of courses would have to be arranged for them. The staff, however, would be common to both institutions and it would be under the administrative management of the Oblate Fathers. Fr. McGonagle appeared to be well disposed to this idea but, of course, could not commit himself or the Order in any way and the matter was left in abeyance at that stage.

Following on from their visit to Letterfrack, Salthill and Clonmel Industrial Schools, the delegation observed that the function of the proposed new units at Finglas would have to be taken into account in any future policy. The memo noted that the centre at Finglas: is not a replacement for Marlborough House in that it does not make provision for the ‘one-month detainees’ or for the ‘uncontrollable or fire-bug’ type who might be sent to Marlborough House for one month. It will, however, assume the functions of Marlborough House in relation to Remand when the Remand and Assessment Centre is functioning. There remains the question of the provision to be made for the ‘one month detainees’ and the uncontrollable (including the fire-bug) type of boy. As already mentioned in this memorandum, Fr. McGonagle and Bro McKinney were adamant that open Training Centres were not adequate or suitable for a certain type of boy and that he could not be accepted in them. It had already been decided that he could not be accepted in St. Laurence’s Training Centre, Finglas. In the course of a discussion which representatives from the Leinster Regional Health Board had in August with officials of the Department of Education reference was made to this problem. Both Dr. McQuaid and Dr. McCarthy, who were members of the deputation, stated that they had recently become confirmed in their view that such a type of boy existed for whom the Training Centres as envisaged – such as St. Laurence’s – were inappropriate and in relation to whom only a high security unit would meet requirements. They stated that plans for the provision of such a unit at Dundrum was at an advanced stage of preparation and that its availability within perhaps two years would serve to relieve the Department of Education of the necessity of making special provisions for this type of boy. It seemed that until alternative arrangements can be made in relation to the future position with regard to the ‘one month detainee’, Marlborough House would have to be kept open on a restricted scale. The Minister for Justice has been requested to agree that discussions should take place between officials of the Departments of Justice and Education in relation to this matter.

On 15th March 1972, CARE – the campaign for the care of deprived children202 – wrote to the Minister for Education, Mr Padraig Faulkner, enclosing a paper setting out their views generally on residential care for young offenders, and specifically on the proposals to establish a new facility at Oberstown in North Dublin. They firstly outlined what they saw as the deficiencies in the system: (a) In the first place there is excessive reliance on residential care as compared with care of children in their own homes, in the community. (b) The residential system generally is undifferentiated in respect of the needs of children. Children are classified roughly by sex and by age but not according to their needs. (c) The buildings are old and make it difficult to avoid institutionalisation and to provide effective homely care. (d) The staff, with few exceptions, are untrained. Marlborough House recruits staff through the labour exchange. (e) The institutions are in most cases quite apart from the community in which they are located, even more so from the communities from which the children are drawn. Thus they do not allow for a service which deals not just with the children but with their families too. (f) Until now there has been no adequate system of assessment and referral which would ensure at least that residential care staff know the background and problems of their charges. (g) Apart form Marlborough House and St. Patrick’s Institution all of the Institutions are run on a voluntary basis by Religious Orders and they retain the freedom to accept or reject children sent to them. In the past year the boys’ reformatory in particular has cut down on the number of boys it takes because of lack of facilities. In these circumstances the courts are often unable to dispose of children to residential care even if they need it. (h) There are no specialist residential facilities for distinct problem-groups e.g. the emotionally disturbed and psychopathic young persons. (i) Marlborough House, the Remand Home, has been particularly criticised for its complete lack of facilities and adequate personnel.

The delegation was particularly opposed to the proposed new Reformatory School to be built at Oberstown as a replacement for the Daingean Reformatory (St Conleth’s). The reasons for their opposition were fourfold. Firstly, the location of the proposed institution is wrong. An institution at Oberstown is still far from the city of Dublin from which most of the young offenders from St. Conleth’s are drawn, so far in fact that it would be quite impossible to provide a service dealing with not just the boys but with their families too. On a less sophisticated level visiting by families would still be very difficult. In addition access to specialist services is more of a problem the farther away from Dublin – or another city – the institution is and the more difficult it is for specialists to be involved on a part-time basis. Secondly the Oberstown project is too big. It is widely agreed that institutionalism is largely a function of size; in that respect Oberstown function would relate to boys from all over Ireland. There is a strong argument for decentralisation of this function as opposed to its concentration in one place. Thirdly, the thinking embodied in the Oberstown proposals is conservative and incoherent. The problems presenting themselves to the Government are clear, though probably wrongly defined, and Oberstown is intended as the main solution to them. It will fit into the existing pattern of juridical and administrative structures which are grossly deficient. If it embodies any new thinking, this thinking is not carried through to any logical conclusion. It retains too many of the inherent disadvantages of the old outmoded system, many of which are associated with the proposed size and type of location. Fourthly the Oberstown project cannot be conceived of as a temporary measure pending fundamental rethinking of legislation and comprehensive reform of services. The fact that it will cost so much and that it will exist in bricks and mortar will give it permanence, will make it liable to be cited as the solution to existing problems, and will thus pre-empt the choice of better options in the future.

The paper also noted the reluctance of the Religious engaged in residential childcare to accept certain children and to operate ‘juvenile prisons’. Instead of the Oberstown project, CARE recommended that a secure unit for between 20-30 boys should be opened in, or close to, Dublin and ‘should be managed, for the time being at least, by the Department of Education’. On 2nd May 1972, a delegation203 from CARE held a meeting in the Department of Education with officials from the Departments of Education, Health and Justice. The record of the meeting made by the Department of Education noted that: Much time was spent in discussing the security arrangements at the new school in Oberstown. The delegation from CARE was very much against the security unit being attached to the school for the reasons already discussed at other meetings. This resistance mellowed somewhat when it was explained in more detail by the Department what was involved – that it would not be a complete security like a prison – and the reasons underlying it. The CARE people were dissatisfied with the location and size of Oberstown and the way these two things combined to stifle any other initiative. In relation to the last point, they were informed that the Department was not adverse to any other arrangement, for example, community based, but that whatever arrangement was chosen, there would be a need for Oberstown in the future.