10,992 entries for Inspections - State

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

A total of 493 witnesses were interviewed by members of the Investigation Committee’s legal team. These interviews covered over 150 Industrial Schools, Reformatories, special schools, residential homes, national schools, secondary schools, hospital and other childcare facilities. Some of the institutions were cited by only one or two witnesses. The material catalogued here consisted of uncorroborated allegations that were unchallenged and unproven and therefore did not have probative value in yielding conclusions about any institution or event. The interviews do, nevertheless, demonstrate the range of abuse complained of in such institutions and the circumstances in which it can arise and are a reference for identifying weaknesses in the systems and indicating areas needing diligence and possibly reform.

Interviews are summarised in the following categories: Boys Industrial Schools and Reformatories Girls Industrial Schools and Reformatories Orphanages Hospitals Special schools and schools for the deaf National schools Other childcare facilities.

Interviews were conducted in respect of 10 schools that admitted boys only. Nine of these were the subject of Investigation Committee reports. Over 250 ex-residents attended for interview many of whom proceeded to oral hearing.

The principal complaint of male interviewees was of physical abuse. The persons identified as being responsible for harsh physical abuse were almost exclusively religious Brothers, priests or nuns. Lay teachers did not feature prominently in the accounts of physical punishment given by interviewees although a small number described lay teachers and lay staff who were employed as night-watchmen, or farm workers as cruel and severe.

Almost all of those interviewed described a regime of punishment. Although the 10 schools that were covered under this category were in different parts of the country and run by different religious orders, the accounts of physical abuse from all of them were strikingly similar.

There was a constant threat of punishment that left the boys fearful all the time. The pervasiveness of punishment derived from the fact that even slight or small misdemeanours attracted blows with the leather strap and most Brothers carried leather straps with them at all times. Boys were beaten if their beds were not made properly or if they were last out of the showers. Boys were also beaten in the classroom for failure at lessons. Many ex-residents stated they were beaten for bed-wetting and this was a practice across all of the schools in this category.

Severe beatings were often associated with allegations of impurity or masturbation, which was also common across all of the schools.

In addition to punishment for offences either trivial or grave, there was the added fear created by punishments administered for no apparent reason. Interviewees recalled being called out of the classroom or being taken out of the dormitory and being beaten without any explanation. This made it impossible to avoid punishment and many recalled a sense of constant fear. As one man stated ‘You got hit for nothing’.

Religious staff members were described as volatile and unpredictable by some complainants: ‘He would fly off the handle a lot’; ‘he was a bully’; ‘he was a vicious man’ and some were described as being obsessed with immorality and sex. One or two Brothers were described as smelling of alcohol when they beat the boys.