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He was asked if he maintained contact when the boy had left the School, and he replied, ‘In some cases, I did, yes, yes ... through correspondence’. He admitted in some cases he arranged to meet them, and in reply to the question where he would meet them, he replied: It was usually – well, on one occasion I arranged to meet one person in Cork ... I met this particular person in Cork on one occasion and in Dublin on another occasion.

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Br Eric admitted to an allegation contained in a Statement of Claim in High Court proceedings from a boy, resident in Lota from the mid 1950s. His counsel asked ‘Did you ever sexually abuse [this boy]’, to which Br Eric replied ‘Yes’. He was then asked to explain to the Committee the circumstances: 1953 was the year, September 1953, and Cork had won the all Ireland hurling final that year and the captain of the team ... about a fortnight after the match ... rang me and he said, "We would like to bring up the cup and have a bit of a party and a celebration for the boys" and I said very good. So, they came up, big number of the local team called Sarsfields, they were the Glanmire area. So they brought the cup up and we had a party and there was whiskey poured in, in plenty, into the cup and we had a good few drinks of the whiskey and the boys then were sent to bed after the party. It was about 10.30 . It was much later than the boys would normally go to bed and I was in my room and I left my door slightly open because the switches for the lights were on the wall outside and the boys were a bit excited, you know, being up late for this party. So I got ready for bed myself and just as I put on my pyjamas this boy ran into my room and he was naked apart from the – he had the top half of his pyjamas on him, so he started jumping up and down in front of me. I wasn’t used to drinking whiskey at the time, as I said it was 1953 and I pressed myself against him and then he went out.

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As a result of their learning disability, the children of Lota were more dependent and vulnerable than children in general. They required additional attention and help from their care-givers. This need for someone to look after them emerged from the evidence heard at the hearings. Graham told the Committee: My first memory of Lota would be I made friends with the women teachers there ... Yes, they were nice to me. They were kind to me, and I felt more at home with them, an awful lot more so because there was only one reason I can say about these teachers, these women teachers, is that like my own mother, my own mother would have been motherly to me up to, maybe, the time she had me, you know. I realised afterwards that I was privileged to have a mother, even though I didn’t know what kind of a mother she was, but I was glad to have her.

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After leaving Lota, he could not praise enough the kindness that ‘other people’s mothers’ had shown to him. He said: But apart from that, I have experienced other mothers’ care with me, and I found loving mothers that I met up with, other people’s mothers.

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He then added: even though I said that with the women teachers I felt at home with them, but still I couldn’t say anything to them because it would get back to the Brothers about what I said. So even though I appreciated the women teachers, I appreciate them as schoolteachers and that they have never done any harm on me, but it takes big giant 6 foot men to upset you, to do what they like with you because the public out there did not know what was going on in that bloody industrial school.

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The happiest day of his life was when, after the deprivations of his childhood, he finally found a family through marriage: It was one of the most nicest and wonderful day I ever had because a family were accepting me into their family and especially my mother-in-law, my mother-in-law to be, and then ... my wife to be. These few days were wonderful days in my adulthood. I saw that there were people there who cared.

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The irony about Lota was that the Brothers who provided the care and the good times were also the sexual abusers. Conall told the Committee: Yes, there was happy times too. I cannot deny that. A lot of people say there was not but there is. There was, of course, it was not all doom and gloom, let us be honest about it. There was good times as well ... The bikes ... The football, I was interested a lot in sports, gymnastics and things ... Even the plays, things we did ... I have to say, I thought Br Guthrie was nice to me at the beginning.

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In their Submission to the Commission, the Sisters of Mercy described the system of organisation that developed as the Congregation expanded: While there was one original foundation at Baggot St., Dublin, each individual convent, as it was founded, was established as an autonomous unit with its own governance structure and its own responsibility for attracting new members. Any new foundation thus had a limited pool of Sisters at any given time. One might almost regard each group of Sisters in a local Convent as a self-contained small Congregation.

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In his evidence, Dr Eoin O’Sullivan ascribed the popularity of the Sisters of Mercy with the bishops, and their pre-eminence in the industrial school system, to the organisational structure of the Congregation: ... Bishops throughout the country were looking to have industrial schools in their diocese. They had difficulties with some of the Congregations, particularly the Christian Brothers and the Irish Sisters of Charity on the basis that the Bishop did not have a rule over these Congregations, effectively they took their rule from their provincial leader which probably was based in Dublin. So the Christian Brothers, while they had a working relationship with the Bishop, they ultimately took their rule from their Provincial. Whereas, the Sisters of Mercy, to the best of my knowledge, took their rule from the local Bishop. Bishops far preferred Sisters of Mercy than other Congregations, they were easier to control.

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Isolation from other Sisters of Mercy institutions was not a necessary feature of life in Goldenbridge Industrial School, because it was part of the family of institutions under the central authority of Carysfort. The Superior General of Carysfort appointed the Resident Managers and selected the Sisters who were sent to Goldenbridge. Goldenbridge was under the direct control of Carysfort in all matters concerning finance and other related matters. This arrangement would have been expected to give rise to regular exchanges of personnel and a flow of communication, but the reality was otherwise. There are no records of meetings or correspondence or any other documentation between the Resident Manager of Goldenbridge and the Superior in Carysfort. In their Opening Statement of 15th March 2005, the Sisters of Mercy made the following remark in respect of the reporting structure that operated between the Mother House and the Goldenbridge branch house at that time: Reporting relationships were not very formal and probably depended very much on the personalities and expectations of the Superior in Carysfort and the local superior or resident manager in Goldenbridge.

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A consequence of the autonomous convent system was that there was a smaller pool of Sisters available for work in an industrial school. Thus, Sr Margaret Casey, Provincial Leader of the Western Province, in her evidence at the Phase I hearing in respect of Newtownforbes, said: The Sisters also would have been drawn from the small local pool of the Sisters in the convent there in Newtownforbes and there was no expert or back up service really available to them.

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In 1953, the Resident Manager of Goldenbridge, Sr Bianca,2 delivered a lecture to a conference on childcare management at Carysfort College, in which she spoke about the role of Resident Manager: The efficient and satisfactory running of every Home depends largely on the person in charge. Experience shows that, where the person in charge is kind but firm; sympathetic but impartial; efficient without being over-bearing; determined but open to suggestion; approachable without being too free; the other members of the staff will take their cue from her, and the result will be content and harmony in the entire Home.

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She stated that a successful Manager should have: ... sufficient skill and judgment to settle each difficulty as it arises; have a sympathetic interest in both children and staff; have a strong personality, without being overbearing or dictatorial, be enthusiastic and enterprising; and above all, she must be strictly impartial.

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In addition, Sisters were less able to secure a change of employment. In her Statement of Intended Evidence to the Committee in respect of Dundalk, Sr Ann-Marie McQuaid, Provincial Leader of the Northern Province, noted: The three Sisters who held these positions during the period under review remained in this position for most of their lives and right into old age.

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The number of Sisters available for work in an industrial school depended on the size of the Community. During the Emergence hearings, Sr Breege O’Neill discussed staffing levels: I think that remained constant in the years between 1935 and 1965. In each of our industrial schools there would have been between 100 and 150 children in the schools. There would have been two or three Sisters, one of whom would have been the resident manager, and maybe another one who would have been working full-time in the school or in some other area. They may have had one or two lay staff ... The people with responsibility for the care of the children would have been four or five people. They would have been on duty seven days a week, 24 hours a day. I know of Sisters who told me of having six little cots around her bed at night of children who needed feeding during the night. That would have been a practice. So they were caring for the children over the whole course of the day.

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