2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

Mr Stegar and Mr Gadd spoke to a number of students in an upstairs classroom. The general response of the students was that it was very much common knowledge that Mr Brander had been really out of control in this area for quite some time and that nearly every pupil in the school knew that. Mr Gadd stated: we certainly were left with the impression that he certainly had been abusing students, that the allegation which this student’s parent was making certainly was probably true. Five boys named Mr Brander as having molested them. Mr Gadd then suggested that they contact a local barrister.

When asked what he did next, Mr Gadd said that he had no clear recollection but he presumed or thought ‘we must have passed on, if we had met him in the parlour and we met him, I think, at the behest of Sr Giuliana, I think we must have reported to her. But I have no picture in my mind of that meeting’. In a previous Garda statement, he had been more specific: We reported our findings to Sister [Giuliana]. It was decided that Mr [Stegar] and I would discuss the matter with Mr [Brander]. He confirmed that this statement was correct.

Mr Gadd was careful to qualify the extent to which Sr Giuliana could have known of the abuse. He said that their understanding of what had happened was different back then: if people like Sr Giuliana and so on had been told about this, I just think their understanding of what was going on at the time would have been very, very narrow indeed ... it was a very different moral world ... People’s knowledge of these matters would have been extremely minimal, that they mightn’t even know about them at all ... one has to put these things into context and one has to understand that the people who were being asked to deal with them would have been very ill prepared to deal with them I think. It was only much, much later on that we understood the enormity of what he had been at ... much later on that we understood that on days perhaps the School would have had a function in the local church, in the local Roman Catholic church, that Mr Brander might have lurked behind and might have accosted the boys in the School, who belonged to [other religious communities] ...

While she said that she believed he never struck a pupil, she appears to have warned him against it: ‘When I was speaking to Mr Brander about striking students I said “Just be very careful, we cannot strike children, it is not our policy for the discipline in the School”’. She added, ‘I suppose I would be afraid he might strike a child ... [he came across] as very strong person’.

However, in evidence before the Investigation Committee, when asked whether she recalled pupils complaining about his discipline, Sr Ines replied: ‘Not really no, I never got serious complaints’. She further said that she did not recall any parents coming to the School to complain. Sr Ines accepted that the statement quoted above must be correct but she had no recollection of the matters stated therein. She could not recollect recording complaints made by parents or whether she would have done so: It was a very busy school. You couldn’t be taking complaints all day. I just did what I was expected to do and did the best I could in a big school.

Fr Derek advised him of the circumstances surrounding Mr Brander’s removal: He did tell me the sequence of how Fr [Colm] heard about it on Sunday and he went to the Bishop on the Monday and consulted with the Bishop and then he came back the next day and ... confronted Mr [Brander] about it and how quickly it was done.

Mr Rothe said that he spoke to the curate in the parish of Tullamore. He felt he was more likely to listen to him than the parish priest: I made an appointment to see him, I went to see him and told him the whole story, he suggested that he would check out the story and that I would phone him a week later, which I did. He was very abrupt and very emphatic that he would do nothing, that he would not be a part of a witch hunt and that you could not drag a man’s past after him like an albatross around his neck.

The Department of Education has acknowledged that the manner in which Mr Rothe’s complaint was handled was inadequate. Counsel for the Department of Education, pointed out in the course of his cross-examination of Mr Rothe that, on a current affairs programme in the late 1990s: ... Minister Michael Martin acknowledged that even by the standards of the time the Department’s handling of your written complaint was impossible to stand over.

Provincial Archivist, Fr Michael Hughes in his evidence to the Investigation Committee at Phase I stated: The place where we parted company with the State in Scoil Ard Mhuire was that ultimately they would not—they were not prepared to sanction a sufficient number of staff members to cover all the responsibilities and we felt at that stage that we should withdraw.

The Oblates, in their General Statement given to the Investigation Committee, asserted that they had high ideals. They ‘brought a vision of their own’ to the work, ‘arising from their long experience in this work and their nature as a religious order. The work was accepted as a mission: the Christian welfare of the boys, their rehabilitation in so far as they were wayward, and their preparation to earn their livelihood so far as possible. They developed a tradition going back to 1857’.

The Oblate General Statement described the characteristics of this tradition as it was put into practice in Daingean: A substantial staff, mostly religious brothers and priests, but lay staff too A well-established administrative structure A remedial education programme Vocational training in various trades and occupations A routine of instruction and work The assignment of the boys to a Brother in a school/training group whose task it was to integrate the newcomer into the life of the School The separation of juniors from seniors A sacramental religious framework An insistence on discipline Encouragement of sporting activities, and other leisure activities such as drama and music Many external contacts Help in finding a job An aftercare programme. The re-establishment of Daingean

A subsequent memorandum elaborated on this theme. Mr Derrig asserted: the basis of the present system is defective and possibly will continue so, so long as maintenance and improvements as well as payments to staff have to be made out of the capitation payment. ... My personal view is that if we are going to make a change from Glencree we shall have to face up to the question of providing a new institution properly equipped, and we may also have to provide special aid for staffing.

In the Emergence hearing into Daingean, the Oblate Congregation did not apologise for any excessive corporal punishment, but they did refer to the press statement which was issued after the broadcast of ‘States of Fear’ in 1999 in which they stated: We would firstly say that the abuse of young people is always abhorrent and abuse of young people in confinement is doubly so. The Oblates of Mary Immaculate deeply regret that any young man was mistreated while in their care and offer sincerest apologies.

In response to a question from the Investigation Committee, the Oblates stated that that press statement: was in the nature of an expression of concern after the TV documentary ‘States of Fear’ in which one of the reformatories was mentioned. It was thought that such a statement was required in view of the public interest in the programme. In their statement the Oblates also indicated that further research was needed. No further statements of this kind have been made ...

In their Opening Statement the Oblates submitted the following: Allegations of physical abuse have also been made. The Oblate Management file shows two complaints of excessive corporal punishment in the lifetime of the school. The school files show five complaints in the lifetime of the school of pupils being struck by staff members: two of these are also found in the DES discovery documents. The Oblates do not seek to defend the use of excessive corporal punishment. However the use of corporal punishment in the period must be judged in the context of a society where it was acceptable in itself and in the context of an institution where numbers were large, facilities were very limited, and there was little or no psychological assessment to exclude violent or unmanageable boys or any resources to deal with them. As a result it was a very difficult task to maintain order in the reformatory and eliminate violence among the boys themselves. It should be mentioned that evidence of support from parents can also be found in the files, and also letters from boys which reveal a good relationship between pupils and staff.