507 entries for Transfers

The result of this conflict of loyalties was that, when Ms Waters, the House Mother of Group Home B, came to her with serious complaints about Sr Callida in the late 1980s, she did not tell Sr Viola but tried to deal with the matter herself. She failed dismally, and Ms Waters went over her head to Sr Viola, who came and interviewed staff and removed Sr Callida from her position as Resident Manager.

Sr Callida’s removal came as a shock to Sr Serena, who claimed that she had no idea that things had deteriorated as badly as they had by the early 1990s. However, she knew of the problems that caused so much distress to the staff. She was aware that some ex-pupils regularly stayed overnight in Group Home A, and she was also aware that these men were sometimes drunk and would be dangerous around young children. She was also aware that Sr Callida absented herself from the home for long periods and that she regularly drank, sometimes in the company of Sr Serena. What was clear from Sr Serena’s evidence was that she never considered the safety or welfare of the children in Group Home A. She professed herself as shocked at the evidence of the care workers who described conditions as dirty and neglectful. In her own evidence, she said that she considered the children were ‘spoiled’: If I had seen anything, if ever I had seen anything in relation to the children in Cappoquin that worried me or upset me, because I was a teacher and because I had care for children, I would have been very – I would have done something about it. But I didn’t see anything. I didn’t see anything that really concerned me in relation to the staff treating the children, or anyone treating the children badly.

Sr Callida’s removal as Resident Manager did not end the problems caused by her time in charge there. She bitterly resented her removal and defended her record in Group Home A vehemently. She continued living in the convent for two years after her removal, and interfered with the committee that had been put in place by Sr Viola to run the homes pending the appointment of a new Resident Manager. This interference continued intermittently until she eventually left the Congregation in the mid-1990s.

Following her removal in the early 1990s, Sr Callida was told to stay away from the group home and children, in order to avoid confusion for the children. The Congregation had great difficulty in getting Sr Callida to comply with its wishes. Initially, she continued to come to work every day, and later she tended to stay around the grounds of Cappoquin, waiting for the children on their way to and from school. Sr Callida remained defiant, and it took almost a year to resolve these problems.

The Congregation submits that discreet steps were taken in response to concerns expressed by members of the Community and by people outside. One sister was asked to be a companion to Sr Callida in the hope that she would be a good influence because she did not drink. However, that did not happen. Instead, as the Congregation submission put it, the two nuns: developed a relationship with each other. This may have had an impact on [Sr Melita’s] capacity to observe [Sr Callida’s] behaviour in an objective manner. It was one of several unusual aspects to the Cappoquin story involving [Sr Callida] as to the manner in which (informal) human arrangements for monitoring her ran into the sand. In the event, [Sr Melita] did not transmit any concerns about [Sr Callida] to anyone in leadership. The submission refers to another nun, Sr Serena, who was ‘specifically asked to report to the diocesan leadership about whether or not there was any substance to the rumours about ‘Sr Callida’s drinking’. The Diocesan Leader was reassured that there was not but the submission admits that the system for monitoring Sr Callida failed ‘for unusual and unexpected reasons.’ This unusual matter was the development of a relationship between [Sr Callida] and [Sr Serena], which compromised [Sr Serena] and prevented the reporting system devised by [Sr Viola] from working effectively. The result was that no information of a drink problem or of any other problems reached the ears of the leadership from internal congregation sources.

In the early 1990s, Sr Callida told the Superior General that she had obtained a position with the Health Board in a project involving the care of a young man. The Superior General informed the Health Board of her concern about Sr Callida’s suitability for the post because of the complaints that had come to her notice, including information from Mr Lloyd. In the course of the resulting Health Board investigation, it emerged that one of the Board’s own senior social workers had given Sr Callida a glowing reference, even though he knew that she had been dismissed from her job in Cappoquin.

The Health Board did not look beyond the social worker’s reference and offered Sr Callida the job. This happened, despite the fact that the Chief Executive Officer of the Health Board had been informed in the early 1990s of Sr Callida’s dismissal, and she herself had been in communication with the Health Board disputing her removal. The social worker should not have given the reference and was seriously at fault in doing so. The Health Board should have been able, from its records, to notice the discrepancy between the favourable reference and the fact that the candidate had been dismissed from her previous post.

Sr Callida left the Congregation in the mid 1990s. Shortly after that, the Superior General was asked for a reference for the former Sr Callida, and she recorded her response in her diary: Phone call from XXX in Dublin looking for a reference for [Callida]. Asked the nature of work – laundry for hospitals. Told her she had been a member of the congregation. She asked what was my connection with her – diocesan superior. I said that I believed she was a hard worker when in hospital for the elderly. She said I seemed hesitant. Told her I did not really know [Callida].

Sr Callida was an incompetent manager who exhibited a lack of basic management skills including rostering, proper record keeping, communicating with staff and children, consistency and avoiding favouritism. Each of these deficiencies would have represented a serious flaw in a Resident Manager but, taken together, they constituted a disastrous mixture. She consumed alcohol in front of the children to excess and she was drunk and incapable on occasion. Her behaviour was unpredictable and irrational; she bullied the staff and occasionally beat the children. Sr Callida exposed children to additional risk by going away unannounced leaving the children in the charge of junior staff who had no way of contacting her and also by permitting male outsiders to have access to the home and to stay overnight even when she was not there. It was wrong for the Resident Manager to have children sleeping in her bedroom and for her and the Sister with whom she was conducting a relationship to take children away for weekends to hotels to stay in ‘family rooms’. Congregation witnesses admitted to some knowledge of Sr Callida’s behaviour, but did not feel they could do anything about it, and the situation drifted on over 12 years until it developed into a crisis. There was no proper supervision of the Manager. The Community did not have the interests of the children as their priority. Any action taken by the Congregation focussed exclusively on the Resident Manager. The children were not considered. The Health Board neglected its supervisory function in respect of children for whom it was responsible. One of its senior Health Board officials permitted his friendship with the Resident Manager, to cloud his judgment, and he failed to recognise gross failures of management as a result. No proper reviews were carried out by the Board’s social workers. The children in Cappoquin were let down and endangered by each of the institutions and agencies in whose care they were placed, by the persons in positions of authority over them, and by persons in supervisory roles. They were fortunate to have care workers who were more dedicated to their tasks and more committed to the interest of the children than their superiors.

In the mid-1990s, Mr Restin was arrested in England and charged with three offences of indecent assault on a boy under 16 and with possession of indecent photographs of children. He was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, of which he served nine months. Following his prison sentence, he spent a period of four months in a psychiatric hospital because of depression and then lived in a probation hostel for a further six months. He returned to Dublin in the late 1990s.

Mr Restin was placed with the nuns in Cappoquin at three months of age, where he remained until he was nine and a half years old. He was then transferred to St Patrick’s Industrial School, Upton and was discharged on the day before his sixteenth birthday.

After four years’ training, he qualified as a nurse and, on one occasion, was sent on special duty to attend a patient who needed treatment in hospital in Cork. At that time, a young resident of Passage West Industrial School was in the hospital where he spent approximately one month. Mr Restin befriended the boy and got to meet the Resident Manager of Passage West, Sr Vita,26 who regularly visited the hospital. When the boy left hospital and returned to Passage West, Mr Restin began to visit Passage West at weekends, when he would spend time there, play ball with the children and occasionally have a meal with the nuns in their dining room. He said that the Resident Manager was aware of his medical training and that she also knew he was an ex-Cappoquin resident.

Soon after he arrived in Passage West, he came across Mr Restin. Initially, he thought he was friendly. The sexual abuse started soon after meeting him and continued until Mr Restin left the Institution. He was forced to engage in mutual masturbation and, after his first experience, he initially tried to avoid contact with Mr Restin by trying to keep a low profile and staying out of his way. This did not work and the abuse continued on a regular basis in a variety of locations in the Institution. He always felt under threat of a beating or punishment if he did not co-operate with Mr Restin. He then began absconding from Passage West. On one occasion, one of the nuns and Mr Restin came to the Garda Station to bring him back to the School and, when they got back, they gave him a severe beating with a stick. Another time, when he was on a visit home, his father noticed marks on his body from a beating. He told his father that Mr Restin had beaten him, and his father planned to confront Mr Restin when he called to collect him after the weekend to bring him back to Passage West. Some form of altercation took place, and it required the intervention of the Resident Manager and her assistant, before his father agreed to allow him to return to the School. He did not tell his family about the sexual abuse at the time.

Some time later, he realised that Mr Restin was abusing others. He began to notice signs as boys emerged eating sweets, having spent some time with Mr Restin. He and two other boys went to the Resident Manager, Sr Vita, in her room and told her what Mr Restin was doing. She seemed sympathetic and asked them to name the boys who were being abused. He named about 12 to 15 boys, and the other boys named a few. He was called to her room later that evening, where the boys he had named were lined up. The Manager asked them in turn if Mr Restin was ‘doing stuff’ to them, and all the boys except for one denied it. The witness and the other boy who confirmed the abuse were taken to the hall and given beatings, which were so severe that the other boy was injured and required stitches. The witness absconded a few days later with two other boys. He thought that he was not caught for about two and half weeks and did not recall being punished, which he felt was because the Resident Manager was well aware of why he ran away. Mr Restin did not bother him after that, and he could not remember when Mr Restin left Passage West.

Mr Restin’s evidence was that he did not believe he was asked to leave Passage West, nor did he think Sr Vita knew he had abused boys there. He arranged to move to Cappoquin while he was still working in Passage West. He was vague in his evidence as to how the job arose. He believed that he met Sr Isabella from Cappoquin while he was doing an interview for the childcare course at Waterford Regional Technical College. Cappoquin was nearer to Waterford than Passage West, and would be more convenient if he was doing the course. He believed that he might have told Sr Isabella he was thinking of doing the course, and thought that she suggested that he contact Cappoquin.