10,992 entries for Inspections - State

Figures 9 and 10 shows the main grounds of committal and discharge modes for children incarcerated in Industrial Schools and Residential Homes from 1960 to 1983. There are significant gaps in information in both these figures due to the fact that statistics were not broken down by Industrial Schools vs Reformatories during the years 1971 to 1977 inclusive. Between 1960 and 1970 most children were committed due to destitution or a lack of proper guardianship with smaller numbers being committed due to school non-attendance or indictable offences; however, by the time the statistics are available once more in 1978, the numbers of children being committed to such institutions was in the single digits, often numbering less than five. Figure 9: Children in care in Industrial Schools and Residential Homes by grounds of committal, stock figures 1960-83

Figure 10 shows that the majority of children discharged from Industrial Schools and Residential Homes were released either into employment or back into the custody of their parents.90 However once again, a sizeable portion of data is missing and by the time statistics are available again in 1978 children were either being released to their parents or being retained in care for the purposes of further education. Figure 10: Children in care in Industrial Schools and Residential Homes by discharge mode, 1960-83

The following sections presents statistics related to the detention of children in Reformatories/Special Schools for young offenders. As can be seen from figure 11 below such schools have often had a haphazard history, opening, closing, and changing names or locations. The institutions initially designated as Special Schools were: St Joseph’s, Limerick (Reformatory School for girls)91; St Anne’s, Kilmacud, Dublin (Reformatory School for girls); St Conleth’s, Daingean, County Offaly (Reformatory School for boys); St Joseph’s, Letterfrack, County Galway (Industrial School for boys)92; St Joseph’s, Clonmel, County Tipperary (Industrial School for boys); St Laurences, Finglas, Dublin (Industrial School for boys).93

The Daingean Reformatory School for Boys, ceased its function on 9th November 197394 and was replaced by Scoil Ard Mhuire, Lusk, County Dublin, which was certified as a Reformatory School on 30th January 1974.95 On 4th October 1983 the Provincial of the Oblate Order informed the Department of Education that it was the intention of the Order to withdraw from the management of the school within 12 months. The Department made inquiries to ascertain whether any other religious Order wished or were in a position to replace the Oblates and were informed by the Education Secretariat of the Diocese of Dublin that no other religious Order was available to replace the Oblates. Scoil Ard Mhuire ceased to operate as a certified Reformatory School with effect from 31st August 1985, thus ending the involvement of the Order with the running of Reformatory Schools in Ireland, which commenced, with the certification of the Glencree Reformatory in County Wicklow, on 12th April 1859.

Trinity House School first opened on 14th February 1983 as a secure unit to cater for young male offenders between the ages of 12 and 16 on admission. This was the first Reformatory School to be managed directly by the Department of Education. The first four boys were transferred from Loughan House, Blacklion, County Cavan on 24th March 1983, a reformatory school managed by the Department of Justice which was certified on 4th October, 1978, and were soon followed by another nine from the same facility the following month. With the opening of Trinity House, Loughan House closed as a Reformatory and re-opened as a semi-open prison for adults. On 23rd July 1984, St Ann’s Reformatory ceased to be certified at the request of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge, who ran the home since it opened in May 1944,96 and Cuan Mhuire, Whitehall, Dublin (Reformatory School for girls) was opened.97 Cuan Mhuire in turn closed in the school year 1990/91 and was replaced by Oberstown Girls Centre, Lusk, County Dublin (Reformatory School and Remand and Assessment Unit for Females). In the school year 1991, a further new school was opened in Oberstown; this was Oberstown Boys Centre, Lusk, County Dublin (Reformatory School and Place of Detention for males).98 In the school year 1999-2000, St Laurence’s and St Michael’s were merged into the Finglas Children’s Centre and is now known as the Finglas Child and Adolescent Centre. Figure 11: Reformatories and Special Schools for young offenders, 1960-2005

Over the past 35 years there has been a substantial decrease in the number of children held in Reformatories and Special Schools. Figure 12 below shows this decline from a peak of just over 250 in 1971 to less than 100 in 2005.99 Also visible is the fact that historically, Reformatories and Special Schools, unlike Industrial Schools, confined significantly more boys than girls, a trend which has continued into the present day. Figure 12: Children in care in Reformatories and Special Schools, stock figures, 1970-2005

According to the Department of Education Statistical Report for 1977-78, previous to 1978 all statistics relating to children entering Residential Homes and Special Schools (formerly Reformatory and Industrial Schools) were only supplied for children ‘committed’ by the courts. From 1978 onwards more detailed statistics are provided on the mechanism for admission including ‘voluntary’, ‘on remand’ and various ‘Health Acts(s)’. Voluntary only appears as a category for Special Schools for two years (1977-78 and 1978-79). To aid in the interpretation of figure 13 below, statistics for children committed ‘voluntarily’ have been included along with those for children being held ‘on remand’. These totals for 1970-74 are year-end totals (with the exception of 1974 which is for 30th September 1974); from 1975 onwards they are totals at 30th June of that year. What is most obvious from the figures below is the extensive decrease in the number of children committed to Reformatories and Special Schools through the courts and through the Health Acts. Figure 13: Children in care in Reformatories and Special Schools by legal basis, stock figures, 1970-2005

In 1978 the grounds of committal or ‘circumstances’ under which children were committed to Special Schools and Residential Homes were changed to include indictable offences, school attendance, and lack of proper guardianship. As shown in figure 14, since 1978, indictable offences has been the dominant reason for which children were committed to such institutions.100 Figure 14: Children in care in Reformatories and Special Schools by circumstances under which child was committed, stock figures, 1978-2005

Similar to children incarcerated in Industrial Schools and Residential Homes, figure 15 below shows that children in reformatories and Special Schools generally have been released back into the custody of their parents or guardians101. However, a significant number of children have also been discharged directly to detention centres, and since 2003 a small number of children have also been sent directly to the care of the Prison Service (seven children in 2005). Figure 15: Children in care in Reformatories and Special Schools by mode of discharge, stock figures, 1978-2005

The following section is based upon the Department of Health reports from 1978 to 2005 on children in care. These reports vary from year to year in whether they record data on the number of children in care on a given day (stock), the number of children who were admitted to care during the year (flow), or a combination of these two types of data. Reports for the years 1978 to 1981 only recorded information on children either coming into care or those who were already in care; it is only from 1982 onwards that stock data is available, providing information on children in care on 31st December of the year. Data on children admitted to various types of care (foster, residential, etc.) are often not disaggregated by key variables such as gender or age in any consistent manner (or sometimes not at all). Further complicating matters is the fact that there are no available reports on children in care for the years 1986-88, 1993-95 or 1997. This is particularly regrettable given the fact that significant shifts in the provision of care for children occurred during these junctures. For example, the total number of children in state care began to rise in the early 1980s and again saw a sharp increase in the mid-1990s. A move away from the use of residential care and towards foster care also seemed to occur during these three-year interludes as well; however, the lack of any data during this time means that our ability to make inferences as to why such changes possibly took place is inherently limited.

Furthermore, even when a report is available the data it is not always comprehensive. For example in the 1978 Department of Health Report on children coming into care there is no information on 287 children of unmarried mothers awaiting adoption who were admitted to St Patrick’s Home during the year 1978 (p 3). Nor does the report include reasons for admission for 192 children who were under supervision ‘at nurse’ in the Eastern Health Board.

The following section attempts to overcome these limits in available data and roughly map the changes in provision of childcare in relation to factors such as type of care, gender, and reason for admission and type of care order. Where possible the most up-to-date categories used by the Department of Health are used in order to provide a sense of continuity over time. Where this has not been possible, older and now abandoned categories have been recoded in a logically consistent fashion in order to correspond with the newer categories. Unfortunately, such recoding was not always possible and many figures consist of a range of categories used from year to year making for cumbersome interpretations of the collated data; however, it is also emblematic of the inconsistency of the recording (or non-recording as often is the case) of such data on children in alternative forms of care.

As can be seen from figure 16 below, the number of children in foster care has increased in general over the past 35 years. In particular, general foster care has steadily increased over the years while private fostering (those ‘at nurse’) has been overtaken largely by fostering by a relative.102 The last 10 years has also seen the creation of a very small number of special foster care and pre-adoptive placements. Figure 16: Number of children in foster careby type of foster care, stock figures, 1970-2005

Since 2002 the Department of Health has subdivided the reasons for children being taken into care into three categories: (1)abuse; (2)child-centred problems; (3)family-centred problems.

To ease interpretation, these three subgroups have been retained and where possible data from previous annual reports has been placed into these categories based upon similarity103. Figure 17 below shows where abuse was cited as the primary reason that children were admitted to care from 1978 to 2005. By far the largest increase has been in the number of children entering care due to ‘Neglect’ from around 500 in 1980 to nearly 2,000 in 2005. Figure 17: Primary reason for admission to care, stock figures for abuse, 1978-2005