4,228 entries for Historical Context

Part of the reason for the increase in the numbers of children admitted to residential care was: ...that there are many children that health authorities cannot place in foster homes or for adoption, e.g. lack of parent’s consent, or some physical or mental deficiency. As you know, in spite of constant reminders to health authorities and representations by the Department’s Inspectors in respect of individual children, the number of children maintained by health authorities in institutions continues to grow.

Later that month, a circular was issued to the health boards, which stated: Having regard to Article 4 of the Boarding Out of Regulations 1954, the Minister notes with concern that over the past few years in some areas the numbers of children placed by Health Boards in institutions has showed a marked increase. He is aware that this may be due to a tendency on the part of health boards to accept into care children who at one time would not be regarded as eligible for such services. It appears nevertheless that in some areas the policy of not providing care for such children other than in an institution is not strictly observed. This may be due to difficulties encountered in finding suitable foster homes. Care should be taken to insert regularly in the public press advertisements seeking such homes. No doubt health board personnel with direct responsibility for children in care will be aware of families suitable to rear such children and should be of assistance in bringing to the notice of such families the health board’s advertisements. Health Boards do not have to be reminded of he present high cost of maintaining a child in an institution. In light of recent increases in the cost of living they should review upwards the maintenance rates payable to foster parents as well as clothing allowances.

On 18th May 1973, a draft memo for Government on the Kennedy Report was circulated in the Department of Education. The memo focused primarily on the issues of administrative responsibilities and the updating of legislation. The memo signalled that the Department of Education concurred with the recommendation of the Committee that ‘administrative responsibility for all aspects of child care should be transferred to the Department of Health. Responsibility for the education of children in care should remain with the Department of Education.’ However, this could not happen immediately as ‘the extensive measures of re-organisation and development which are currently engaging the attention of the Department of Health and the health authorities are unlikely to enable a transfer to take place without risk of some loss of efficiency.’

On this basis, the Department of Education proposed: (a)that administrative responsibility for the appropriate institutions remain with the Department of Education for the time being; (b)that the Department of Education take over, again for the interim period, the administration of similar institutions which, by reason of the fact that they do not accept children through the Courts, are at present under the Department of Health ; (c)that the Department of Health retain responsibility for boarding-out children; (d)that the planning of the development of facilities for the institutions and children in question be jointly undertaken by the two Departments in an inter-departmental committee under the direction of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education and which would include also representation from the Department of Justice; (e)that the Department of Health arrange with the local health authorities, and through the inter-departmental committee, to place at the disposal of the schools the necessary psychological, psychiatric, medical and social worker service.

In relation to the recommendation in the Report that ‘all laws relating to child care should be examined, brought up-to-date and incorporated into a composite Children Act’, the memo outlined that: pending provision of the new institutional arrangements which new legislation would embody, the exact outline of new legislation could not be anticipated. Moreover, it was difficult to see what direction new legislation should take in the absence of a decision in regard to administrative responsibility... The Minister therefore proposes that an inter-departmental committee be set up under the direction of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education and comprising representatives of the Departments of Education, Health and Justice and of the Attorney general to examine the present framework of laws relating to children, to consider the amendments, deletions and additions demanded in these laws by present-day circumstances and policies, to make recommendations and to prepare for submission to the Government the heads of a Bill embodying their recommendations.’

In addition, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Mr John Bruton outlined his views in a memo to the Minister. Noting the recommendation of both the Kennedy Committee and the CARE memorandum that responsibility for Residential Homes be vested in the Department of Health, he argued: ‘unlike the Department of Education, the Department of Health does not at this time have a staff with experience or competence in dealing with residential child care’. He also argued that: the multiplicity of agencies dealing with individual families and the lack of longterm overall planning – will not be solved by a simple transfer of Departmental responsibility for Residential Homes and Special Schools. Nor will it be solved by the setting up of a mere outside advisory body as proposed by CARE. It requires the establishment of more efficient means for co-ordination between Departments in dealing with both individual cases and overall policy.

In relation to this overall policy, he proposed that: an interdepartmental committee should be set up with representation from the Departments of Health, Education, Justice, Finance and the Attorney General. This Committee should draft a new Children’s Act, prepare proposals for the long-term financing of Child Care Services and establish permanent consultation procedures between Departments in relation to policy. A transfer of responsibility will require legislation anyway and thus would properly form part of the new Children’s Act which should be prepared by he inter-departmental committee suggested in the last paragraph.

Mr Bruton met with the Association of Workers for Children in Care (AWCC)213 on 4th July 1973 and sought their views on the transfer of residential childcare services to the Department of Health. Fr Gormley, on behalf of the organisation stated: that the administration of child care services by one Department would greatly facilitate the work, and the AWCC had stated this in its response to the Kennedy report. However, it was not for the Association to say which Department could best provide the services that were needed. As far as the Association was concerned, it was the quality of the administration and the back-up services which counted. The real problems facing workers in the Homes were often haphazard method referral, the lack of assessment facilities in many areas, inadequate finance, the lack of ongoing support for children after they have left care. The Association saw the need for a Family Welfare Department which would co-ordinate the work and generate the various services which were needed.

The Department of Health also drafted a memo for Government outlining their views on the situation, particular the need for decisions to be made on matters arising from both the Kennedy Report and the CARE memorandum and noting that ‘while the recommendations in the two reports differ in some respects basically CARE reiterated the recommendations in the earlier Kennedy Report’. The memo acknowledged that progress had been achieved in realising some of the recommendations of the Reports, ‘but there are two major areas which have not been dealt with – the recommendations regarding the administration of services and the need for comprehensive examination and up-dating of legislation in relation to child care’. the memo outlined that responsibility for the probation services, the juvenile liaison scheme and the children’s courts should be retained by the Department of Justice rather than being transferred to Health as recommended in the Kennedy Report. The memo argued that Government should accept in principle that adoption services should be transferred from the Department of Justice to the Department of Health, but that ‘further consideration should be given to the question when the transfer should take place’. On the issue of residential care, in relation to the reformatory schools and remand homes, the memo noted that: a view has been put forward that the residential and educational aspects of care given in these centres cannot be divorced and that special teaching related to the deficiencies of the children is a vital element; this is a cogent argument as there is no doubt that education must be a major element no matter what Minister is responsible for the centres. However, while there may be little, if any, health or welfare content in the case of a number of residents their initial medical and social assessment would be an essential element. Furthermore, the Department of Health has wide experience in the running of institutions and many of the problems which would arise in regard to the centres would be similar to those arising in other residential centres. The making of arrangements for more specialised care would be facilitated if one authority had responsibility for all centres. Again, there is a large educational element in mental handicap institutions – the Department of Education providing the necessary education works well. There is great need to build up expertise in the sphere of delinquent, aggressive and seriously disturbed behaviour and this almost certainly must be done on the health side. In the circumstances, the balance of argument appears to suggest that the Department of Health should take over responsibility for these centres.

In relation to industrial schools, the memo argued that as these homes contained ‘an increasing proportion of children sent by Health Boards and which can be regarded, to a considerable extent, as part of a family care service’, that responsibility for the homes should be transferred to the Department of Health and that the ‘Health Boards have the necessary staff expertise etc. to ensure the best possible care for children in these homes’.

An Inter-Departmental Working Party, along the lines suggested by Education, was established, but difficulties were evident within the Department of Education in making progress in implementing the recommendations of the Report and on maintaining their day-to-day obligations in relation to Residential Homes, in particular, their inspectorial work. On 29th November 1973, Mr Ó Maitiú highlighted that the post of Inspector of Reformatory and Industrial Schools had in effect been downgraded from an assistant principal officer to that of a higher executive officer (HEO). However, ‘because of the work involved in implementing the Kennedy Report these arrangements have proved entirely inadequate. The Report has involved the recasting of the system from top to bottom and involves work of very high quality. The HEO has not found it possible to carry out his executive duties as officer in charge of the section and, at the same time perform his statutory duties as Inspector. The inspectorial work has suffered.’ Mr Ó Maitiú noted that the Kennedy Report had recommended that ‘approximately five or six Inspectors would be required to operate a proper inspectorate’. Mr Ó Maitiú stated: This is a formidable indictment of the official attitude to the inspection of the homes and of the indifferent approach to the staffing of the Inspector post. Three years later the position, if anything, has worsened. Far from five or six Inspectors being appointed, there is now not even one Inspector fully on the job. Furthermore, the H.E.O. can only carry out an administrative inspection – he has no qualifications otherwise. He has not even the help of a Medical Inspector as this post has not been filled for some years. The situation is now arising where the personnel of the Schools is obtaining child-care qualifications (as a result of courses conducted on behalf of the Department), whereas the Department itself has no inspector qualified in this field. There is an urgent need now for an Inspector with suitable qualifications who will supervise the implementation of the Kennedy Report in the Schools and homes and advise and council staff, co-ordinate arrangements with Health boards and Courts, ensure that medical services etc. are provided, that children are securing the education best suited to their needs and aptitudes, that after-care is receiving proper attention.214

In addition, he noted that: the Kennedy Report also recommended that the Children Act 1908 and other relevant legislation be up-dated in a new composite Children’s Act. This has not yet been tackled – it was decided to wait until the outline of the new institutional and other services had emerged more clearly. However, considerable public pressure is now being exercised, as the existing legislation is entirely inappropriate to modern conditions.

A fortnight earlier, the Kennedy Report was debated in the Seanad, the first time the report was debated in either House. The Parliamentary Secretary at the Department of Education, Mr Bruton, outlined the progress on implementing the recommendations of the Report, but observed ‘to date there has been a certain amount of secretiveness in the approach of my Department and also of other Departments to this important subject. This was particularly marked during the tenure of office of the previous Government.’ On the issue of Departmental responsibility for child welfare services, he argued: No matter where we draw the line as between one Department and the other, no matter where we lay the main responsibility, there will always be frayed edges, there will always be areas where demarcation will be unclear. Even within the terms of the Kennedy and CARE recommendations the Department of Education would retain responsibility for general education, for school psychological and child guidance service, for school attendance, for youth service, for remedial education, for education of the mentally handicapped and so on. All these are matters which bear very significantly on the life of the child in care and indeed on national policy in relation to children in care. To take another example, the Kennedy proposal that in the case of special schools one Department should have responsibility for the residential aspect of the special schools and another for the educational aspects, would introduce a duality of responsibility where in fact at the moment unity exists. It may be that the problem it is sought to solve, namely, the lack of co-ordination in overall policy-making and in dealing with the cases of individual children, can best be dealt with by more formalised contact between the various authorities at national, regional and local level rather than by shifting responsibilities around from one Minister to another.215

In February 1974 an Inter-departmental working party was established to ‘review the extent to which the Kennedy Report has been implemented and to indicate the areas which still await implementation’ and that the Working Party ‘would form a briefing for a group to be set up to recommend action, including legislative action, which should be taken in regard to improvements in the field of childcare’. The Working Party systematically reviewed each of the recommendations in the report.

Recommendation No 1 stated 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 admission of children to residential care to be considered only when there was no satisfactory alternative’. The Working Party found that while it was not possible to compare the number of children in care in late 1973 with the position that existed at the time of the Kennedy Committee were reporting, in broad terms the number of children in Reformatory and Industrial schools had declined from 2,202 in 1969 to 1,495 in December 1973. It also noted that for Departmental purposes, Industrial Schools were now referred to as Residential Homes and Reformatory Schools referred to as Special Schools, although for legal purposes, they would retain their original designations. The decline in the number of children in Industrial Schools, the Working Party suggested, was due to a greater reluctance by the courts to commit children because of a lack of proper guardianship was a contributory factor in addition to ‘improved living standards generally and the continuing impact of the Adoption Act 1952, and of Department of Health policy favouring boarding-out as opposed to residential care.’ In relation to the Reformatory Schools, the introduction of the juvenile liaison scheme in the early 1960s216 and a much expanded Probation and Welfare Service217 helped divert many young people from having to be committed.