10,992 entries for Inspections - State

The voluntary organisation, Children First245, suggested that: The whole area of fosterage and residential care should be re-examined. Subject to proper regulations for supervision and inspection [both pre-and post-placement], fosterage, both short and long term, should be more widely encouraged. In cases where Residential Homes are the most satisfactory solution, the recommendations of the Kennedy Report should be implemented: Individual houses should be provided for 7-9 children of different ages and sexes cared for by a trained house mother and house father [the latter having, also a normal job].246

The Manager of St Joseph’s, Tivoli Road, Dun Laoghaire,247 highlighted the importance of teachers and argued: Teachers in Primary Schools should be reminded that they are the ones who are in the best position to detect possible home problems. Neglect at home shows itself at school in sleepiness, non-attention, lack of concentration, homework badly done etc. Problems thus detected should be made known to the Community Social Worker.248

On the suitability of placements, the manager suggested that: If children have to be put into care, it is very important that they should be put in the most suitable home. The amount of contact with the family which is desirable should be taken into account. Very often admissions are made on the criterion ‘wherever there is a vacancy’ [While proximity to the home and surroundings of the child might be held as the ideal, there are times when the opposite is best for all]. The Referral Agency should be able to protect the Residential Home from having to hand back innocent children to irresponsible parents who come and take them at whim.249

In addition, she argued that: A full Report on each child to be sent by the Referral Agency to the Residential Home. A decision made as to who the Social Worker is, who is responsible for the child being admitted. It is important that the Social Worker visit the child regularly. In the event of a change, the child should be told, and the new Social Worker taking over should be introduced by the one who is leaving. In regard to above, it is important that the Social Worker understand her role. She is the link between the child’s past and present, and she should support the child and help him to accept the fact of being ‘in care’.250

The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in its submission noted that section 14 of the Children Act 1908, which related to begging, was being ignored and stated: We realise the futility of fining Itinerants as a deterrent, and it is a matter of concern to us, that, between the well-meaning efforts of the public who keep on giving money when approached, and the lenient ‘we have got to be the Travellers Friend’ attitude of Itinerant Settlement Committees Social Workers, many children are exposed to cold and wet conditions.251

For children in care, they recommended that there should be: a Statutory obligation to review every three months the progress of any Child in Care whether committed through the Courts, or admitted Voluntarily by a Home or through the Health Board, whether short or long term. By progress, we mean the child’s physical, emotional, education and social well-being. Case Conferences should take place within the Homes so that caring Staff can be involved. We deplore the present system whereby Religious Staff in Residential care are often poorly qualified, unpaid and expected to work long hours under conditions of stress without adequate support or information. Offenders and non-offenders should not be mixed. Short term and long term should not be mixed. The only categories which should be mixed are sex, age and family structure. Residential care should be seen as therapeutic to alleviate emotional, physical, and psychological damage. Damage during developmental years may have resulted from inadequate parenting, poor housing and environmental deficiencies. All these homes will need properly trained Child Care Staff with Director: preferably, we feel who should not be a religious. The Homes need a Social Worker of their own, to act both inside the Unit with Staff and Children, and to liaise with outside Social Workers. We feel this is better than an outside Social Worker who is unable to support the Caring Staff, who indeed may make them feel ‘threatened’ and cannot be aware of the internal day to day stresses. The turnover of External Social Workers is high and, most important, some children in care may be neglected completely if there is no inside Social Worker.252

The system of inspecting children’s homes also required rethinking, their submission argued: The present system whereby the best toys and linen are brought out in anticipation of the visit from ‘The Department’ is futile. We feel that regular visiting of Children’s Homes by a qualified Social Worker who would do more than inspect the beds and have tea in the parlour. Administration Staff in Residential Care have many problems which could be ironed out if a sympathetic trained person visited regularly and spent perhaps a day or two getting the real feel of the home.253

The Finglas Children’s Centre in their submission provided information on a sample of 442 boys who had been referred to the Centre by the Courts for assessment during the period 14.01 .1972 to 1.07 .1974 and noted that: Inadequate parental support emerges as a salient contributory factor in the case of almost every boy who has been sent to the Centre for Assessment...While allowing for the fact that 43 percent of our boys were from economically depressed central city areas (predominantly Postal Area 1) and that 67 percent of them came from families in which there were at least seven children, (the contributory factors) are closely associated with a very distinctive feature of the children referred by the Courts for assessment, namely, physical diminutiveness.254

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.