10,992 entries for Inspections - State

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.

In relation to the neighbourhood youth projects, the letter stated that the Department of Education did ‘not consider it appropriate that the administration of any of these services should be allocated to regional health boards’ and that the Department did not support any plan to reduce the number of places in St Joseph’s Clonmel. The Department was prepared to accept responsibility for the two Special Schools for disruptive children, but in relation to traveller children, the letter stated: It is the Minister’s firm policy that, as far as possible, the education of traveller children should be integrated with that of ordinary children.266 Furthermore, there are at present over 100 travelling children in care in existing residential homes and special schools who have been integrated successfully with the other children. The Minister feels therefore that the question of providing a separate unit for the more difficult travelling children needs to be reconsidered. Given the nature and purpose of the two special schools proposed for disruptive boys and girls, he considers that any travelling children requiring special care could be adequately catered for in these schools, thus avoiding the stigma involved in a separate unit and the duplication of expensive facilities. In addition, the Minister believes that it would be difficult to provide effective security in a building of this type and that it is likely to encounter bitter opposition from local residents at the planning stage.

To move things forward, the letter also suggested ‘that the best way of doing this would be to set up a formal co-ordinating committee representative of the two Departments and of the Department of Justice on the lines already operated in regard to facilities for handicapped children’.

This was agreed to by the Department of Health and the inaugural meeting of the Implementation Committee took place on 8th October 1976. In relation to the first recommendation of the Interim Task Force Report; the establishment of a Council for the Education and Training of Social Services personnel; the meeting agreed to establish a Manpower Committee, with the Department of Health having a lead role working in liaison with the National Council for Educational Awards and the Higher Educational Authority. On the second recommendation: the establishment of neighbourhood youth projects; it was agreed that the initial resources would be put into the Cork project and that the other projects would learn from their experience and with lead responsibility residing with the Department of Education. With regard to the third recommendation, the provision of accommodation for children on a short-term basis, it was agreed to expand the number of places available at Madonna House, but it was noted the ‘question of money being available is the only problem’. The fourth recommendation: the replacement of St Joseph’s School in Clonmel, was deferred until both Departments could agree on the size of the School.

In addition, the meeting noted that the cost of replacing St Joseph’s would be in the region of £1 million and economic considerations would have to be taken into account.

A further meeting took place on 13th October 1976 at which it was agreed to defer a decision on the issues regarding St Joseph’s Special School in Clonmel. In relation to the recommendation of the Interim Report that additional hostel accommodation be provided for homeless boys in Dublin, the Committee agreed that ‘a further effort should be made to confirm with the Eastern Health Board the extent of the problem and the best way of meeting it’. On the issue of the provision of accommodation for seriously disturbed boys and girls, it was decided that it would be ‘advantageous to arrange a discussion at which both the community care and psychiatric interests would be present’. In early 1977, a memorandum for Government was prepared to outline the proposed implementation programme arising from the Interim Report of the Task Force on Child Care Services. The memo noted that a number of developments had occurred since the publication of the interim report that addressed some of the recommendations contained in it, including the provision of an open residential centre for traveller children at Trudder House, in Newtownmountkennedy managed by the Dublin Itinerant Settlement Committee and the provision of additional accommodation for children at Madonna House in Blackrock, County Dublin.

In relation to the provision of a Special Secure School for boys, the memo noted that: the provision of this type of accommodation is regarded as urgent. Experience in this country is similar to that elsewhere: there is a small group of disruptive boys who are persistently and seriously delinquent and whom none of the existing institutions can cope with. Accommodation in a secure setting is required to meet the problem posed by them. The fact that such accommodation is not available enables these boys to flout the law with total impunity and leads others to follow their examples.

The memo also suggested that building a closed unit, situated beside Scoil Ard Mhuire in Oberstown, might be more economical than providing a completely new school, but that: the Oblate Fathers, who administer the school are quite adamant that they will not be involved in a custodial care situation. It would appear, therefore, that a closed school, whether built at Lusk or elsewhere, would have to be administered directly by the Department of Education.