10,992 entries for Inspections - State

Denis O’Sullivan argues that it was only from the late 1960s, that a ‘social risk’ model of childcare, which had influenced policy for the previous hundred years, became displaced by a more developmental model of childcare. This was brought about by the discovery of the ‘deprived child’ in Ireland. Prior to this period childcare intervention was viewed as ‘a means of social control rather than of individual fulfilment’.172 The primary facets of the emerging developmental model were disenchantment with institutionalisation and the need to move beyond a narrow interpretation of childcare. Rather than focusing, almost exclusively, on the physical needs of the child, the need to incorporate emotional and psychological dimensions in promoting the welfare of children gained acceptance. The Reformatory and Industrial Schools Systems Report (the Kennedy Report), prefaced with the statement that ‘All children need love, care and security if they are to develop into full and mature adults’173 most clearly articulated this shift. O’Sullivan has argued that ‘[the] application of changing interpretations of equality to the life circumstances of children who came into care, mediated to the public through conferences, publications and considerable media coverage, was to be one of the major sources of the “discovery” of the deprived child in Ireland’.174 However, while the Report was symbolically an important stage in the evolution of child welfare and, in particular, residential childcare services, it is perhaps better understood as the distillation of an understanding of the role, function and dysfunctions of residential care that had emerged most articulately since the mid-1960s. The key recommendations of the report, from the need for new legislation and the need to provide a coherent administrative structure were recognised and broadly accepted before the report was commissioned.

Mr Padraig Faulkner, the Minister for Education who received the report of the Commission, in his memoirs recalled that: It was an excellent report, highlighting as it did the serious deficiencies in the service, which I accepted. It gave my Department a base on which to build for the future....I remember being pleased that in reference to religious institutions the committee stated: ‘We are very much aware that if were not for the dedicated work of many religious bodies the position would be a great deal worse.175

He further stated that: It was to be quite some time after I left the Department of Education that I first heard the word ‘paedophile’. During my time as Minister I hadn’t an inkling that child sex abuse existed. When I published the Kennedy Report in 1970 Dáil questions on a variety of aspects of it came thick and fast. Some deputies praised the diligence and selflessness of the religious orders in caring for children in care. Nobody raised the question of abuse. Dr. Noel Browne and Dr. John O’Connell were among my most persistent questioners and nobody doubts that if these two deputies had heard so much as a whisper about abuse they would immediately have raised the matter in the Dáil. I suppose in a way, like most people, I was living in an age of innocence when nobody believed that people in authority, be they religious or lay, could commit such heinous crimes.176

It was only with the construction of health boards in 1970, as a result of the Health Act 1970, that the State began to take a more active role in the provision of childcare services.177 The Act established eight regional health boards and within each health board a number of community care areas. Previous to this Act, services were delivered by local authorities, for whom services for children formed only a very minor proportion of their multitude of tasks.178 Health boards had responsibility for what were termed three ‘programmes’: (1) community care services; (2) general hospital services; and (3) special hospital services. Community care services are further sub-divided into three sub-programmes (i) community protection sub-programme; (ii) Community health services sub-programme; and (iii) community welfare sub-programme. Services for children were provided through the community welfare sub-programme of community care services.179 Gilligan has argued that as health boards began to establish their own social work services, social workers employed by the boards identified childcare as a priority and quickly subsumed the Irish Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Children180 as the key agents responsible for placing children in care.181 This was facilitated by utilising the ‘fit person’ order182 under the Children Act 1908,183 a section long forgotten, but initiated by Eastern Health Board social workers and adopted by the other boards.184

The Department of Education were also reorganising their services at this time and on 16th July 1971, it was announced that ‘the industrial and reformatory schools branch will not henceforth exist as a separate branch but will be joined to the Special Schools Sub-Section of the Primary Administration branch under the Principal Officer L Lane and the Assistant Principal officer T Ó Gilín. L Ó Criodhain is appointed as an Inspector of Reformatory and Industrial Schools in the grade of HEO’. Mr Ó Maitiú later commented that the work of this subsection was ‘innovatory and in some ways experimental. It calls for staff of a high quality’ Despite this re-organisation, by November 1973, Mr Ó Maitiú stated that ‘While significant headway has been made in bringing about the reform of the old discredited system, progress in some aspects has not been as satisfactory as it could have been, mainly because of staffing problems.’ As a consequence, he reported that ‘resort has been made to keep the work of the section above the water line’. These included: (i) Formal inspections by HEO of residential homes and special schools suspended since June 1973, apart from a few urgent journeys. As the HEO is bound by law to inspect each school at least once a year, this is a matter of the gravest importance. (ii) Parental Monies (a) Visits by E.O. to homes of parents have practically ceased. (b) arrears in payments of parental monies not being fully investigated. As a result the weekly amounts collected have fallen: immediate action is necessary if the continuing loss in revenue to the State is to be countered. (iii) Other duties: Certain of the minor duties of the clerical assistants have been curtailed or eliminated.

After the publication of the Report of the Committee of Enquiry into Reformatory and Industrial Schools’ Systems, the Department of Education invited observations on the recommendations contained in the report from various interested parties.185 Before examining these responses, it is worth examining the initial response from the Department of Health. In a memo dated November to from PW to Mr O’Sullivan, it outlined that: The main recommendation from the point of view of this Department would appear to be that the Commission recommends the taking over by this Department of the administration of the various Acts dealing with Child Care and the setting up within the Department of a Child Care Division which would deal with all aspects of child care.

The consequences for the Department of Health was that: Apart from finance which would mean transfer not only from the Vote of Education to the Vote for Health, but also from local authorities to health boards of the cost of maintenance of committed children, there would be an increase in the routine work in child care. This work is at present dealt with as part of the work of this section, which also deals with Public Health Nursing Services, and the Maternity and Infant Care Scheme, and by two posts of Inspectors of Boarded Out Children. At present, one of these posts is vacant. The Department of Education Reformatory and Industrial School Branch is staffed by one A.P.O. who also acts as Inspector of the Schools, one HEO, one E.O., one C.O. and 4 clerk typists. Individual returns are received from each school by the Department half yearly.

The memo concluded While the taking over the care of children committed through the Courts for indictable offences would be new to this Department, there is duplication between the work of this Department and the Department of Education where the taking of children into care for social reasons is concerned. I feel that this Department should take over administrative responsibility for the residential care of all children as recommended by the Committee, and that co-operation between the Department and the voluntary organisations running the schools might result in the closing of some of them and the adaptation of others to the requirements set by the Committee at the most economic price possible while meeting the high standards advocated.

Miss Clandillon, who drafted a memo within three weeks of the publication of the Report, dated 4th December 1970, stressed the need for additional staff, particularly qualified social work staff and the limitations of the existing system of training.186 She observed that: If it is agreed by the Departments concerned that the Department of Health should take over the children in Approved Institutions at present under the Department of Education it is inevitable that inquiries will be made as to the present social work staff both in the Department of Health and at local authority level. At present there are no social workers employed by the H.A.s in the following areas: Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny, Longford, Roscommon, Leitrim, Sligo, Donegal, Monaghan, Laois, Offaly, Meath, Westmeath, Waterford, Wicklow, Tipperary (N.R.) and Tipperary (S.R.) In Counties Wexford, Limerick, and Cavan the Children’s Officers have no formal training in social work. This applies to some of the Children’s Officers employed by Dublin Health authority and to one of the Cork Health Authority staff. While most of these officers are doing valuable work it would be a great help to them if a course of in-service training were set up either by the Department of Health (on the lines of those organised by the Home Office in England) or else as an extra mural course run by the Department of Social Science at U.C.D. consideration would have to be given to practical work as well as lectures on various aspects of social work. For family case work it might be possible to arrange placements of one or two students at a time with the Family Welfare Bureau of the Catholic Social Service Conference which arranges training for social science graduates during their post-graduate training. Practical experience of adoption placements and procedures might possibly be arranged, again for one or two at a time, with the Catholic Protection and Rescue Society, South Anne St., Dublin, which is the only registered adoption society in the country having sufficient trained staff. On the other hand, it might be found more convenient to send the few C.O.’s concerned to Britain for a training course. In areas where Public Health Nurses are working with deprived children this arrangement should be dropped and in these areas, listed above, qualified social workers should be appointed as soon as possible.

Clandillon further argued that additional staff would be required in the Department of Health and that each social service department should not exceed that of the country areas, and within each department: there should be a qualified Senior Social Workers, with post-graduate qualifications and experience...who would direct and co-ordinate the work of the other social workers so that the most appropriate member of the staff would take over each case and thus avoid overlapping and waste of time and personnel. A weekly case conference should be held but the Senior Social Worker should be available for consultation in any case of particular difficulty. She should also supervise all initial placements of children whether for boarding-out or adoption.

In relation to the Adoption Board, Clandillon noted that ‘it is a matter of concern that only a small number of their welfare officers is qualified in social work and a recent advertisement in the daily press for further officers for adoption, probation and prison welfare work equates qualified with unqualified staff. At the present time I would not consider the Board a suitable agency to take people seconded for in-service training’. She further noted that she thought ‘it unlikely that the Department of Justice will agree to the inclusion of the Adoption Board and its officers under a new Children’s Department though this could be of benefit to the children to be adopted’.

In more general terms, Clandillon suggested that when responsibility was transferred to the Department of Health: All the remaining Industrial Schools and the two Reformatories should be visited to ascertain the numbers of committed children and the reasons for committal. All the information possible should be collected on each child, including psychological test results in cases of doubt. The normal children who have no marked disturbance or behavioural problems should be placed as soon as possible with suitable relatives or foster parents. Both categories should be asked to take the children on a boarded-out basis. They should get supportive help from a social worker in helping the children to integrate into the family. Disturbed children and members of families who are being kept together will require special study. Some emotionally disturbed children will be better cared for in small units for such children where the close ties and demands of small family would be too much for them. They should have psychiatric help and the support of a highly qualified social worker. The ground work done in this field should be of benefit to the new departments as they set up and form the basis from which to work towards the integration of more children into the community.

In addition, she argued that: the takeover of the children at present under the Department of Education should run quite smoothly in areas where there are good Children’s Officers. In other areas appointments of qualified and experienced social workers should be made as quickly as possible. These areas would need special help and consideration from the Inspector(s) of the Department at first but the Senior Social Worker could always keep in touch if any difficulty arose. It would be valuable to have a seminar for all the staff of the new departments here in the Department of Health to discuss the most efficient way to keep records and personal files, and so on, so that a similar pattern of organisation would be adopted in each region and in the county area offices throughout the country.

Clandillon envisaged the replacement of the large industrial schools with small group homes, housed in ordinary houses designed for family living in cities and towns. Again, ideally, the house should be run by married couples, the husband going out daily to his work and the wife doing the running of the home. It may be difficult to get sufficient numbers of married couples who would be interested in this work. It has been remarked that breakdown in child care of this kind may occur if the couple has children of their own in the pre-teenage group. It would be more useful, therefore, to look for couples whose families are grown up so that there is no conflict between the couple’s children and those entrusted to their care. If such couples are found they should be encouraged to meet each other from time to time in the presence of the appropriate social worker to discuss any problems.

On 13th January 1971, the Irish branch of the Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry provided the Department with their observations on the report. In a letter they stated: It would appear that the Committee of Enquiry, although stating in its opening remarks that it intended to cover the whole field of Child Care, did not, in fact, do so. There is no definition of what percentage of the population is under discussion and there is no indication of what percentage of children require care. Although generally stating that reform is needed, the whole effect of the criticisms, which are many and entirely substantiated by our experience, is unstructured, failing in total impact and unconnected. The specific problem of four systems of central governmental control is not tackled satisfactorily. We would support the proposition that responsibility for all aspects of Child Care be transferred to the Department of Health and, furthermore, we would consider that ideally one department should be responsible for the whole system under review. The lack of an adequate system of Social Administration and the lack of an establishment for social workers within central and local government prevents any improvement or action on foot of the Committee of Enquiry’s proposals. Social workers are of vital importance to adequately gather and access knowledge of the child and his family before ‘care’ is instituted and assisting in adequately ‘paving the way’ on this charge. The inadequacy of present ‘would be’ social workers is perpetuating the naïve concept of Child Care and fails to recognize the developmental aspects of the child and his family.