4,228 entries for Historical Context

In relation to the girls entering Cuan Mhuire, the report noted that: the majority of girls admitted....were referred by health boards because they appeared to be out of control or were at risk due to drug taking, solvent abuse, promiscuity or sleeping rough. In about 10 to 12 of these cases, the assessment report on the girls recommended that they receive residential care in a well-structured, secure facility which staffed and equipped to deal with difficult and disruptive girls. At present, there is no such facility available to the health boards.

The Group contemplated the establishment of a separate facility for such females, but ultimately argued: on economic grounds alone...it would appear that the best solution would be to have one facility which would cater for any girl who required special care, whether she be referred by the courts or by a health board. We are strengthened in this view by the fact that the needs of the girls for care and support would not differ significantly regardless of whether they were offenders or not and that their treatment and management would be very similar.

The Group concluded that there was a need for a facility which would incorporate a remand and assessment unit, a long-term unit and a secure unit, to collectively accommodate 25 girls with responsibility for the facility resting with the Department of Education. The year after the Study Group on Young Female Offenders reported, an Interdepartmental Committee on Crime was established, which reported in December 1989. The Department of Education, in their submission to the Interdepartmental Committee, argued: ..as it would be considered that children and young people committed by the Courts are primarily in need of care and education, places of detention, industrial schools and reformatory schools have come under the Minister for Education (Ministers and Secretaries Act 1924, fourth part of schedule). The Minister for Education considers that this situation should now be changed in relation to secure centres and that responsibility for such centres should be transferred to the Minister for Justice. There are a number of reasons for the Ministers view (1) The fact that the Department of Education is not directly involved with the Courts, Gardai or Probation and Welfare Service impedes its ability to respond to needs. (2) The Department of Education is not otherwise involved in the provision of security and does not have expertise in this area. (3) Many of the difficulties the Department has experienced in operating centres involving an element of security derive from the basic and unavoidable orientation of staff towards care and education rather than custody. (4) Because of their near-adult physique combined with unpredictable, explosive behaviour, young offenders in the 15/16 age group are among the most difficult of all offenders to handle; it is odd for the Department of Justice freed from responsibility for such a group. (5) It is exceptional in European terms to find responsibility for secure provision for young offenders with an education Ministry. The reason in our circumstances appears to have been the fact that the earlier industrial and reformatory schools were conducted by religious orders.

This viewpoint marked a significant shift in official thinking in the Department of Education, signalling that their direct involvement in the managing and administration of Reformatory and Industrial Schools should cease and be transferred to Justice. However, as noted earlier, it was not until 2007 that the transfer suggested by Education formally took place. The Inter-departmental report outlined that: The Group considers that the main problems in this area are, firstly, the fact that, other than the remand and assessment facilities at Cuan Mhuire, there are no residential places at all provided for young female offenders. Secondly, as regards male offenders, there are insufficient number of residential places for the 14-16 years age bracket. Apart from being a problem in its own right, this also causes difficulties in that less troublesome offenders must be housed with the more disruptive type of offenders. In addition, there is the problem of male offenders, who have been placed in a secure centre, returning when they have served their term, direct to their communities without any opportunity of preparing in advance to adjust to normal life.

On this basis: The Group has come to the conclusion that there is a need for (i) of the order of 70 additional places for young male offenders, principally in the 14-16 age bracket and (ii) of the order of 15 additional places for young female offenders (I.e. exclusive of the provision for girls at Cuan Mhuire); 3-5 of these places should be secure. In considering the question of the need for secure places for both male and female offenders, the Group is conscious of the fact that a secure centre, as well as providing places for particularly disruptive offenders, enables other schools in the system to operate under a less restricted regimes. Accordingly, the Group makes the following recommendations. (a) Scoil Ard Mhuire, Lusk, should be re-opened as soon as possible as a Centre for 40 older [14-16 (17) years age group] male offenders – (legally as a reformatory) (b) A half-way house hostel should be provided to cater for boys who have been in secure accommodation in Trinity House School before they return to their communities (c) A facility is provided to cater for 23-25 young female offenders. (the Department of Education have indicated that such a facility should ideally be located on the Departments lands at Finglas Children’s Centre-this would allow use to be made of existing assessment, dining and recreational facilities and of teaching staff already in place at the complex. (d) Temporary facilities be provided as a matter of urgency for young female offenders pending the construction of the new accommodation at Finglas Children’s Centre proposed at (c) above. (i.e. Lusk) (e) The making available for young offenders of up to 40 additional (non-secure) places in Department of Education Centres as a result of the phasing out of the use of such places by ‘Health’ clients. ...The Department of Health accepts that use by Health Boards of these 40 places could be phased out over a period of time, thus freeing them for Court referrals. However, they emphasise that this can only be done in the context of the implementation of proposals to: (1) provide an additional 42 residential specialised places for adolescents (2) maintain and extend the development of a number of initiatives targeted at groups identified as being particularly at risk, viz. young homeless, young travellers and young substance abusers. (3) Develop services for mentally ill adolescents.

Arising from the recommendations of this Group, the Oberstown Girls School, on the site of the now disused Scoil Ard Mhuire, was opened in March 1990 as a place of detention by the Minister of Justice, Equality and Law Reform to accommodate up to eight young persons on remand, replacing Cuan Mhuire. In September 1991 a second unit was opened which was certified as a Reformatory School by the Minister for Education and Science under the Children Act 1908 to accommodate up to seven young persons. However, this was only to be a temporary arrangement as it was intended to construct a new and larger facility for young females on the grounds adjoining the Finglas Children’s Centre. The rationale for this expansion was in response to ‘major public disquiet over the level of delinquency among young females and the apparent inadequacy of custodial facilities to deal with the situation’.360 In this context, the Finglas site was selected as an urgent response was deemed to be required and ‘the ready availability of a State owned site which was deemed suitable on the basis of expert advice, provided the best solution available in the time allowed’. However, it transpired that the demand for places at Oberstown did not materialise and as a consequence, the decision to develop the Finglas site was reviewed and in July 1992, the Department decided to drop the plan. The Oberstown Boys School was established in 1991 as recommended by the Inter-Departmental Group and is certified as a Reformatory School by the Department of Education and Science under the Children Act 1908. Ten of the beds are certified as places of detention by the Minister of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

In the early 1990s, the Resident Managers Association and the Streetwise National Coalition361 commissioned a report in respect of the dimensions, organisation and funding of residential child care in Ireland.362 The report explored the key recommendations of the Kennedy Report and reported on the progress made. In relation to funding, the report, while noting the shift from a capitation system of funding to a budget system, nonetheless argued that: The current system of funding for residential care varies enormously both within and between the residential sectors. There is evidence of little rationale in the current system of budgeting, which appears to be determined by tradition, individual negotiation by each home with the relevant government departments and agency, and the strength of the trade union. Funding has immense significance in determining the levels of staffing available to children, the quality of care and the necessary resources each individual child and young person requires.363

In relation to funding, the report noted that a ratio of level of one member of staff to every four children in residence was established as the norm following the publication of the Kennedy Report. However, the research reported noted: this level of staffing is anomalous and is not adhered to within the services. Great variations have developed in the past twenty years both within and between the different residential sectors. These variations have been determined by tradition, individual negotiation, trade union negotiation and political expediency.364

On the issue of the integration and planning of services, the research noted that three Government Departments remained responsible for different aspects of the residential child care system and that this division: causes confusion and a lack of cohesion and planning in residential care services. In consequence, residential care services have developed haphazardly, with certain sectors contracting and others expanding. It is also apparent from the research that there is a lack of integration between the four separate residential categories -group homes, special schools, residential psychiatric units, adolescent units -in terms of policy, planning and service delivery.365

In 1993, Gilligan in a paper prepared for the Conference of Major Religious Superiors, the Catholic Social Service Conference and the Sacred Heart Home Trust identified a malaise among religious providers of child care services. He identified a number of contributory factors, including: the low prestige of the field inside and outside the Church; the hurt and anxiety felt in the face of adverse publicity about past services; the scandals in this field which have publicly broken over the heads of religious in various places; the increasing complexity of the task and what seems to be experienced as the ever widening gulf between the level of competence available and that required by the task; the rising cost of providing services to the necessary standards and the shrinkage of financial and human resources available; the prospect of the erosion of the traditional autonomy of services provided by religious orders as the state system exacts greater accountability, partly as the prices of greater aid; unremitting pessimism about the value of residential care in many professional circles and the absence of a sufficiently well argued and influential counter view; the absence of a structure for independent and sympathetic professional advice to congregations or their representatives on negotiating with statutory authorities and researching needs and planning responses within their particular set of resources.366

A short number of years later, a further report on the organisation and structure of residential childcare in Ireland was published. Reflecting on the 25th anniversary of the publication of the Committee of Enquiry into Reformatory and Industrial Schools’ Systems, the authors concluded that: There have been major changes in child care since the publication in 1970 of the Kennedy Report...There is a new sense of professionalism about the service on the ground, new services have been developed and some other services have contracted. It is a matter of great concern, nevertheless, that many of the concerns highlighted in this research were identified in the Kennedy Report 25 years ago, and although substantial and far reaching changes have taken place in the system, many of the recommendations of that report since remain to be implemented.367

As noted in the introduction to this paper, it was not until 2007 that the policy recommendations articulated in a series of reports and other documents, particularly the Kennedy Report and the Task Force on Child Care Services were by and large, fully implemented. Of course, over that period new areas of concern have emerged that neither report fully engaged with or discussed. Nonetheless, in quantitative terms, less than 10 percent of children in care are now in residential care, and this is in spite of an increase in children entering care in recent years. This paper has not aimed to evaluate the system as it currently operates nor does it offer an explanation for the current configuration of services. Rather, it has attempted to outline and describe a selective series of events that have contributed to the current organisation of child welfare in Ireland. It is not comprehensive in its treatment of the child welfare system; rather it focused primarily on residential care. In doing so it hopes that by allowing the disparate viewpoints of civil servants, lobby groups, Church organisations and other commentators on the residential child care system to be outlined, it can form the basis for a more comprehensive understanding of this crucial area of intervention by the State and others in the lives of children and their families.

1965 also saw the launch of the Fine Gael Policy document Towards a Just Society which inter alia proposed to: Improve considerably the facilities in Industrial Schools and Reformatories, including the provision of adequate psychiatric care; to move wherever possible Institutions caring for young people to new, small and up-to-date buildings, and to establish small family group homes; to increase grants to the existing Institutions so as to permit them to expand and improve their facilities; to provide an adequate after-care and follow-up service for young people leaving Industrial Schools.124

Another major issue arising from the interview process was the standard of food in the schools. Many complainants noted that the food lacked variety and described it as being very bad, smelly, salty and stale. Some used the term ‘prison food’ and others felt it was served in a prison-like fashion, with bars on the windows and a military style of serving food.

Some complainants stated that there was never enough food and thus they were always hungry. This resulted in them having to steal food from the kitchen or eat things such as raw onions from the garden to supplement their diet.