4,228 entries for Historical Context

The Final Report of the Task Force was submitted to the Minister for Health in September 1980 and published in 1981 but, within a year of its establishment, the Task Force issued an interim report stating that they had been able to ‘isolate a number of the more glaring gaps in our existing range of services – gaps which we strongly feel should be filled as a matter of great urgency’.255 The Interim Report of the Task Force on Child Care Services was presented to the Minister on 19th September 1975 and was published on 18th November 1975. In presenting their report, the Task Force outlined their modus operandi to date, which included reviewing the childcare system in various countries, including visits to Scotland and London, and discussing various issues with relevant experts in Ireland. However, they noted that ‘a major difficulty we faced throughout the preparation of this Report is that the available Irish data is both partial and crude’.256 To in part remedy this situation, the Task Force, in collaboration with the Irish Association of Social Workers (IASW), conducted research on the extent of child deprivation in Ireland.257 The Interim Report made 14 main recommendations in all. They were: The proposed Council for the Education and Training of Social Services Personnel should be instituted as a matter of urgency and its first priority should be to decide on the training needs of residential child-care staff. Three Neighbourhood Youth projects should be initiated in the immediate future, one each in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. Urgent consideration should be given to the provision of small residential units for very young children who need short-term care apart from their families and for whom foster care is not appropriate. The existing buildings at St. Joseph’s Special School, Clonmel should be replaced by a special school providing residential care for 60 boys who need care or control additional to that provided by their families and who have serious educational problems as well. Additional hostel accommodation should be provided in Dublin for 30 homeless boys aged from 14 years upwards. A special residential centre should be provided in Dublin to cater for about 15 disturbed boys aged from 15 to 18 years. The proposed Special Residential Home at Warrenstown House, Co. Dublin should provide intensive care for 24 acutely emotionally deprived boys and girls. A special school should be established in the Dublin area to cater for 25 to 30 boys aged 12 to 16 years who cannot be coped with in existing residential institutions. A special residential centre should be provided in Dublin to cater for 12 severely disturbed girls aged about 14 to 18 years. A special school should be provided in the Dublin area for 25 girls aged from 12 to 17 years, who have shown themselves to be too difficult or disruptive for existing facilities. A residential assessment centre for 10 girls should be provided in Dublin in association with the special school mentioned above. Two new open residential centres should be provided in Dublin, each catering for about eight travelling children and providing a range of support services and day-care facilities for travelling families. A special residential centre should be provided in Dublin for a group of approximately 12 travelling children who have been identified as being in need of residential care in a centre which can provide means of containment in the first instance. • Within the existing law, certain modifications should be introduced with a view to achieving some reduction in formality in dealing with children’s cases in court.258

The Task Force reported that they were ‘continuing our deliberations as rapidly as possible. Our task is a complex one, since there are no easy solutions to meeting the needs of deprived children. Our final report will be presented as soon as possible.’259 In a memo to Government it was argued that the Report should be published as a matter of urgency as ‘(a) Many of the recommendations contained in the Report are related to identified gaps in existing services which require to be filled as a matter of urgency (b) the Minister is under strong pressure from many sources dealing with the problem of Child Care to have the Report published.’ Notwithstanding the desire of the Minister to publish the Report, it was emphasised ‘that agreement to publication of the Report would not be taken as commitment to the recommendations and views which it contained’. Although the Departments of Education and Justice had no objection to the publication of the Report, the Department of Finance stated: the Minister for Finance noting that the opinion that agreement to publication is not to be taken as a commitment to the recommendations or views contained in it is nevertheless concerned that publication of the report at this stage could lead to anticipation that the recommendations would be implemented at an early date. The Minister for Finance also wishes to remind the Government that in the prevailing financial and economic conditions no extra money can be provided in 1976 or for some time to come to implement any of the Report’s recommendations unless such money is made available as a result of genuine reductions in other Government expenditures; that no matter what humanitarian reasons may require improvements in health and social services, they cannot be met without extra resources and such resources are not available.260

In addition to the reservations expressed by the Department of Finance, the Department of Education had a number of reservations about the recommendations. In relation to the issue of juvenile justice, Mr Ó Maitiú in a detailed memo on 15th December 1975 noted that the Department of Education had in front of it, three different reports on the provision of facilities for young offenders, the first and second interim reports of the Interdepartmental Committee on Mentally Ill and Maladjusted Persons (The Henchy Reports) and the interim report of the Task Force on Child Care Services. Mr Ó Maitiú observed that: The Henchy Committee was a committee of experts with particularly strong representation from the legal and medical professions. The Task Force is a committee with a somewhat more limited range of expertise than Henchy (It does not, for instance, include any psychiatrist). A difference of approach therefore is to be expected in the reports, apart altogether from the fact that each committee had different terms of reference. Henchy is concerned mainly with offenders and potential offenders, whereas the Task Force deals with deprived children in a wider sense. Nevertheless both reports adopt a compassionate, non-punitive, stance. Both concentrate on the needs of children rather than on the nature of any offence committed and both concede that a whole range of facilities is necessary to satisfy these needs.

In terms of responsibilities for the Department of Education, the services recommended by the Task Force ‘are basically the same as those recommended by Henchy. These in turn are based on proposals formulated by this Department over two years ago to which the Department of Finance agreed in principle but which have been held up awaiting the Task Force Report. There are some important variations however, which will have to have to be carefully considered.’ In terms of facilities for children, ‘the only additional facility recommended by the Task Force as far as this Department is concerned is the closed unit for aggressive and disturbed itinerants. We had made no distinction between itinerants and ordinary children similarly disturbed.’

In relation to the specific recommendations of the Task Force, the Department of Education agreed that a Council for the Education and Training of Social Service Personnel was necessary; however in relation to the proposed establishment of Neighbourhood Youth Projects, the memo noted that this: scheme was conceived by the special education section over two years ago and Finance sanction was received in principle for projects involving capital expenditure of about £100,000 in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. The Task Force agrees that the Cork project should go ahead under this Department, but recommends that the Dublin and Limerick projects be taken over by the Health Boards with less emphasis on formal education. This recommendation shows a complete lack of understanding of this Department’s plans, since the whole purpose of the projects is to get away from formal education. The Centres are intended mainly for truants, with whom formal education has failed. The programme would be ‘educational’ in the very widest sense of the term but would also be therapeutic and recreational. It is intended that the local committees administering the Centres will be representative of the various disciplines involved – including the ‘health’ disciplines – as are the Boards of Lusk and Finglas. It does not make sense therefore to split administrative responsibility between the Departments – this kind of split has been condemned as one of the evils of the present system. I think therefore that the three projects should continue to be the responsibility of this Department.

In relation to St Joseph’s Industrial School in Clonmel, Mr Ó Maitiú noted that: plans for a new school with 100 places were at an advanced stage when the scheme had to be postponed until the Task Force reported. The Task Force recommends that the accommodation be reduced to 60. This reflects the views of the CARE lobby which succeeded in reducing the accommodation in Lusk to 60 pupils also. As a result it is now a completely uneconomic unit to administer.261

The recommendation for a special school for boys who could not be coped with in existing institutions was deemed to be a ‘top priority’ by Mr Ó Maitiú, since in its absence nothing else can work. There should be no illusions about the type of boy it will cater for – the young gang leaders mainly from Dublin and Cork – who carry out vicious assaults, terrorise old people, steal cars, steal and wantonly damage public and private property. Since they will not be taken in Lusk or Finglas (or can easily abscond from these schools) they are effectively out of the reach of the law until they reach 16 years of age, when St. Patrick’s Institution can take them. The proposed school will need to be very secure indeed and the staff will have to be carefully selected. To what extent education can help these boys is doubtful, but the effort must be made. Both Henchy and the Task Force agree that the accommodation should be provided for a maximum of 30 boys. The Task Force however visualises that this should be broken down into three different units – secure, intermediate and open respectively. While different degrees of security can be visualised it is hard to see how any part of the school can be ‘open’, especially as perimeter security will have to be maintained. Obviously this will have to be teased out before detailed planning takes place. One solution might be to provide the unit on the land which the Department already owns at Lusk, with Lusk itself serving as the open unit. This is likely to be objected to very strongly by the Oblates. In any case, any ‘secure’ unit will have to be under lay management since all the religious orders have indicated that they are no longer prepared to undertake responsibility for the custodial care of children.

With regard to the Special School for girls under 17, Mr Ó Maitiú was in agreement with the recommendation of the Task Force, subject to the same reservations as was the case in relation to the equivalent unit for boys and also agreed that an assessment centre was required for girls, which would also provide remand facilities.

In relation to the proposed closed centre for traveller children, Mr Ó Maitiú observed that apparently the only reason the Department is being given responsibility for this is that under existing legislation the Minister for Education is the only Minister who can keep children under detention in secure custody. However it is difficult to see how any worthwhile education can be provided in such a centre and how such violent and anti-social children as these are known to be could be handled in such a small complex for 24 hours a day. As far as the education of travellers is concerned, the Department’s policy has been strongly in favour of integration in ordinary schools and to set up a separate school for itinerant offenders will breach this long established practice. It is not clear why the needs of these children cannot be met within the closed centres recommended at 2.0.8 and 2.0.10 and very strong reasons would have to be advanced for the duplication of expenditure which would follow if a separate centre were set up for the travelling children.

Mr Ó Maitiú went on to make the following comments in relation to this issue: The Department is getting the really dirty end of the stick – the ‘toughies’ whom no-one else can handle. The religious orders will not take on the closed schools so we will have to administer them directly with no expertise in this type of situation. Statutorily, however, we cannot escape this responsibility.

The provision of residential care for traveller children had earlier been discussed in the Department of Education in April 1975, and each Residential Home and Special School was contacted in order to ascertain the number of ‘itinerant’ children in care on 17th April of that year. The returns from the homes and schools showed there to be 104 ‘itinerant’ children in care (84 in Residential Homes and 20 in Special Schools), which approximated to 8 percent of the total number of children in residential care.262 On 30th April 1975, a meeting was held in the Department of Education to discuss ‘accommodation for ‘itinerant’ children in need of residential care.’ The meeting was attended by representatives from the Department of Education, Health, Local Government, Justice and the Dublin Itinerant Settlement Committee. The Department of Education outlined the existing services for such children and noted that there were insufficient places for such children in the Dublin area and the children tended to abscond at the earliest opportunity. The meeting noted: ‘It appears that the problem has arisen in an acute form only since the families began to move in to the Dublin area, attracted by the rich pickings of a prosperous city.’ The representative from the Itinerant Settlement Committee,263 Mr Victor Bewley, was of the view that there were 30-35 young itinerants in the Dublin area in need of residential care, but that a ‘high proportion of these would require secure care as they will not stay in open settings. A number of these children by now are extremely hostile and vindictive and very little can be done with them.’ He also informed that meeting that the Committee had obtained the use of Collinstown House in Clondalkin to accommodate itinerant children. The Department of Education informed the meeting that if the Itinerant Settlement Committee could obtain suitable premises, it would be prepared to seek the sanction of the Department of Finance to assist with the capital expenditure and they would pay the approved capitation grant for any children referred by the Courts. However, the representative from the Committee stated that they had neither the time nor the resources to undertake this work, but that the Committee would be prepared to participate in the management of such a unit.

On 7th May 1975, the Parliamentary Secretary at the Department of Education, John Bruton, wrote to Larry McMahon, TD (Chair, Sub-Committee on Settlement of Travellers) and the Minister for Local Government, James Tully, TD to outline his concerns in relation to traveller children. In his letter, he noted: ... it would seem that some priority would need to be given to settlement of the real problem families, difficult though this may be. Otherwise the children will exact a terrible toll from society. Already it would seem that some of them at this stage are irredeemable.

The primary response to the needs of these traveller children was the establishment of Trudder House in Newtownmountkennedy, County Wicklow in 1975 by the Dublin Itinerant Settlement Committee.264 Trudder House was established following a fire in a Dublin bookshop, the APCK bookshop in Dawson Street, in January 1975, apparently started by traveller children who were sleeping rough at the rear of the shop. Eight boys, aged between 10 and 14, were charged with starting the fire along with other charges. The case highlighted the lack of facilities for such children and Trudder House was the eventual outcome.265

More generally in relation to the recommendations of the Interim Report, Mr Ó Maitiú observed: the staffing situation will not permit us to handle any projects beyond those we are dealing with already. If there is a serious prospect that money will be made available, then we can assess the staff requirements more exactly. In particular we will need (a) a least one Assistant Principal Officer full-time. The present arrangement under which we nominally have Mr. Gillen’s Services on a half-time basis is ludicrous. It is now over a year since he was loaned to the Task Force for a job that was supposed to last three months; (b) Full-time architectural assistance will also be required (at present we have an Architect on a part-time basis for two days a week); (c) professional child care advisor. Recruitment of this officer is in hands but it is understood that the man selected will not be available before 2 February, 1976. (d) the existing law with all its illogicalities will still have to be contended with. As a result of the recent High Court case it now appears that a child guilty of many offences cannot be detained for more than a year unless convicted by a judge and jury. How could a secure centre be effective in their case? Obviously the legal position in such cases will now have to be clarified.

On 6th March 1976, Mr Ó Maitiú formally wrote to the Department of Health outlining the response of the Department of Education to the Interim Report of the Task Force. The letter clearly outlined the role of the Department of Education in the provision of services to children: I am to state that it should be clearly understood in this connection that the Minister for Education is prepared to shed his responsibility in connection with the proposals in the Task Force which are essentially educational in character. While he appreciates the very thorough and careful way in which the Task Force has investigated the issues involved, he would not necessarily agree with the details of every recommendation, particularly as there is an acknowledged conflict between certain of these recommendations and those of the Interdepartmental Committee on the Treatment of Mentally Ill and Maladjusted Young Offenders, chaired by Judge Henchy. In deciding these points of conflict, due weight must be given to both sets of recommendations.