Dear Justice Laffoy;
The enclosed submission was discussed and passed at an Annual General Meeting of our association. Many of the questions may seem obvious but as we are approaching the question of child abuse from the specific perspective of the separation of Church and State, there may be some points raised in this submission that may not otherwise be brought to the attention of the Commission.
The relationship between our State and the Catholic Church is still a subject of intense emotion on both sides. It is only necessary to observe the controversy that followed the broadcasting of States of Fear to see how fundamental are the issues raised for Irish society. The Irish State has not yet devised a coherent response to the phenomenon of Catholic Church decline in Ireland. There are already signs that the pattern of responses to clerical scandals that has emerged in the nineties, will recur in the debate about child abuse: initial horror in response to revelations of abuse followed slowly by a realisation that the Catholic Church is a central institution in Irish society which we can ill afford to lose.
The problem with these responses is that they cancel each other out and no progress takes place. Our association favours a policy of vigorous public criticism of the institutions of the Catholic Church in Ireland where criticism is justified. It is only through a full revelation of the facts including deceit on the part of the Church authorities that the possibilities of reform will emerge, in the relationship between Church and State, in the relationship between the Church and society and within the Church itself. Of course no one can foresee how any of this well emerge. Yet a well intentioned move to go easy on a religious organisation which is still clearly supported by a majority of the population, out of concern to conserve the social fabric, is very likely to be self-defeating. The religious and cultural problems stemming from a changed attitude to the Catholic Church will never be addressed if the State is overly sensitive to the religious sensibilities of the people.
Quite a number of members of the Campaign have had some personal connection with the industrial schools, mainly through their families or as professionals. As an association we applaud the Government in appointing the Commission and wish the Commission good luck with its work.
We would be glad to help the Commission in any way we can.
Yours sincerely;
David Alvey.
Secretary.
States of Fear, a three part television documentary screened by RTE starting on April 27th 1999, provided apparently solid evidence of how the traditional relationship between the Irish State and the Catholic Church caused large numbers of defenceless children to be subjected to a reign of terror. Mary Raftery, the producer, was able to show that even by the standards of the time the treatment endured by all inmates of the Irish industrial schools was inhumane and exploitative. The documentary revealed that the numbers of children incarcerated in Irish industrial schools was higher than the numbers in Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales put together. That damning comparison provides one indication that the Irish experience of industrial schools was substantially different to that of other countries. That officials of the Department of Education voiced concerns about 'sadism' or 'malnutrition' in the institutions without taking further action serves only to point up the abject subservience of the Irish State in its relations with an all-powerful Catholic Church.
The Campaign to Separate Church and State is making this submission to the Commission on Child Abuse because we consider that the Church/State aspect of the problems uncovered in States of Fear should be included in the Commission's terms of reference. A reflex deeply ingrained in Irish public life of avoiding criticism of the Catholic Church has not diminished in recent years. The strength of that reflex, which is part of the reason why the abuses took place in the first place, cannot be overstated.
We hope that in investigating the many abuses described in States of Fear the Commission will not flinch from investigating the political/institutional relations which made it possible. Church/State relations have changed since the forties but they have not changed qualitatively, as the revelations in the programme concerning Madonna House showed. The Irish State continues to relate to the Catholic Church in an unusually protective and deferential manner. That this relationship still gives rise to impropriety is illustrated in the following points:
We are not suggesting that the Commission should investigate these matters, we are merely pointing out that Church/State relations in this Republic continue to be problematical. Ironically when political leaders have the confidence to cast aside their habitual fear of the denominational lobby the result can be in the best interests of Church and State.
We know of three notable examples of Government Ministers showing leadership in this regard:
These Ministers have shown that conservative religious opinion can be successfully faced down, that Irish politics can be conducted on the basis of a Separation of Church and State.
(All of the matters raised in States of Fear clearly warrant investigation; we are concerned here to identify issues that arise from the relationship between Church and State.)
Given that the Catholic Church enjoyed a position of immense social influence in Irish society during the period in question, did members of the Catholic religious orders who ran the industrial schools believe that they could act with impunity?
In other words was there a conscious understanding among the religious that the State should be subservient to the Church?
Why did inspectors fail to notice the harshness of the regime in the institutions---the semi-starvation, the excessive corporal punishment, the inadequate or non-existent education, the grievous bodily harm, the fear, the sexual abuse?
Was there comprehensive deceit on the part of the religious?
Or were the inspectors complicit in protecting the religious orders from hostile publicity?
If there was official knowledge of the abuses perpetrated in the institutions, was this knowledge conveyed to the senior ranks of the civil service, to members of the Cabinet?
Under whose authority was the system designed so that the institutions were funded according to the number of children incarcerated?
Was this system ever the subject of political criticism in the Dail or the Cabinet?
Was there any awareness in the Department of Education or other Departments that the number in industrial schools was excessively high?
States of Fear revealed that the State paid half of an agricultural labourer's wage for each child in the industrial schools. Was all of this money expended in the management of the industrial schools?
If it was, why were the children kept in a state of semi-starvation?
If the funding was not expended in the management of the schools what was it used for?
Some female inmates of the industrial schools graduated to the Magdalene laundries. What happened to the considerable profits of the laundries?
Did the industrial schools or any of the other institutions make a financial gain from the child labour carried out in the institutions or away from the institutions?
How much were the members of the religious orders paid and from what funds were their wages paid?
How were the other institutions funded and was there any impropriety in their financial management?
When officials of the Department of Finance requested to see the books and financial records of the industrial schools, what reply did they receive?
Were such matters followed up?
The introduction of legal adoption in 1953 had the effect of drastically reducing the number of children in industrial schools. Why was it delayed for so long?
What reasons were put forward by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. McQuaid, against the introduction of legal adoption.
Why did the Fianna Fail Government decide against introducing legal adoption in 1944?
Why did the Fine Gael led Coalition Government decide against introducing legal adoption during its term of office in 1948 - 1951?
When members of the judiciary ruled that children should be separated from their parents because of 'lack of proper guardianship', what evidence was required before such a ruling could be made?
Was the word of a parish priest considered sufficient evidence?
Were such rulings constitutional given the constitutional protection accorded to the family?
How many children were incarcerated in industrial schools because of 'lack of proper guardianship'?
The retired district judge, Mary Kotsonouris, has written that a play entitled 'The Evidence I Shall Give' by district Justice Richard Johnson, which was performed in the Abbey Theatre in the sixties, described what went on in the industrial schools. How much was known by members of the judiciary about the industrial schools?
A number of important judicial rulings handed down by High Court Judge Gavan Duffy between 1936 and 1951 reinforced the position of the Catholic Church as having a special status in Irish law. These included:
How much of an influence did these rulings have in predisposing members of the judiciary towards being supportive of practices approved by the Catholic Church, such as the incarceration of large numbers of children in industrial schools?
In the same way, how influential was the theocratic element in the 1937 Constitution?
To his credit a former editor of the Evening Herald, Brian Quinn, stated the following in an article in the Irish Times on May 15th:
As for journalists, we failed in our basic duties in the 1940s and 1950s. We allowed a strident Christian Brother to burst into the office of the manager to demand that a District Court case involving Artane be 'spiked' and not used in the Evening Herald. He would also invade the editorial room to announce the manager's decision. He got away with that one more time.
To what extent was the media complicit in suppressing information about clerical abuse in industrial schools?
Was the experience of the Evening Herald unusual or was the media as a whole reluctant to probe stories which might cast the Catholic Church in a bad light?
How does the Catholic Church influence the media today? Are there important informal channels of communication between the Catholic Church and the important media organisations like RTE and the Irish Times? Is there or should there be a formal mechanism through which Church concerns can be conveyed to the media?
These matters deserve investigation as information does not become 'public' in contemporary society until it has been released through the media. Society cannot grapple with questions like the abuse of children in institutions unless the media report on them. As the media failed to perform its duty in the past, a mechanism of some sort should be put in place which would completely allay public fears that the Catholic Church enjoys a position of special influence.
In concluding this submission we are adding this brief historical note. Clearly the priority for the Commission will be to ensure that Irish children who are the responsibility of the State will not in the future be exposed to the abuse described in States of Fear. But it is also important that the full historical truth about the industrial schools should be formally recorded by the Commission.
By way of helping to place the story of the industrial schools in a historical context we would suggest that the published opinion of M.J.F. McCarthy writing around 1900 may be of interest. McCarthy was a Catholic from Cork who became critical of the manner in which the Catholic Church was accumulating power in the latter half of the nineteenth century. As an isolated individual it was difficult for him to sustain an objective orientation and ultimately his writing reflected English and Protestant prejudices about Catholic Ireland. Nevertheless his observations indicate that some at least of the abuses in the industrial schools system predate the founding of the Irish State. In his book Priests and People in Ireland (Higgis Figgis, Dublin 1902) he states the following (the emphasis is his):
The industrial school, which the Christian Brothers conduct at Artane, is one of the great glories of clerical Dublin. The boys are marched through the city on every possible pretext, in ranks of two deep, sometimes accompanied by their band, and, whenever they appear, they form a most striking demonstration. One hears nothing but admiration expressed on all sides for the appearance and turnout of the boys. They defile past the astounded Dubliners like soldiers on parade. It has often occurred to me that such an enormous brigade of boys demonstrating through the city, instead of being a subject for congratulation, should be a subject for lamentation to the citizens. Assuming that they are all boys who have been genuinely convicted for vagrancy and begging before a magistrate, should we not regard it as a standing reproach to our city that such an army of young vagrants can be maintained in permanent strength from the delinquents of its population. But, assuming that a great part, or the majority of them, are boys who have been spuriously convicted of vagrancy and begging, is the display not even still more lamentable? It is bad enough to have real beggars in our midst, but it is far worse to have numbers of people who can work, but won't; parents who can support their children, but will connive at having them committed for crime to such institutions so that they may be supported by the State.
(Priests and People in Ireland, page 379)
Speaking of the large quantity of land which the Christian Brothers had acquired in Fairview, Clontarf and Artane he refers to their farming activities and the advantages that access to a large pool of unwaged child labour provided:
They carry on extensive farming operations; and must be in a position to utilise the labour of the boys for the cultivation of their land. That would give them an advantage over the ordinary county Dublin farmers, with whom they are to be seen competing at the Dublin cattle market on Thursdays, the corn market and the hay market. In one of his official reports I find that the inspector of those industrial schools criticises the conduct of the religious managers of those establishments in acquiring more land than is necessary for the purposes of the institutions. A reason for excessive acquisition of land would be that the soil can be worked by the free labour of the boys in the schools, and that, in consequence, money can be earned by farming, in addition to the profit which is made out of the Government and municipal stipends allowed for each boy.
(Priests and People in Ireland, page 380)
McCarthy states that in 1900 the Christian Brothers had 882 boys under their charge at Artane and Carriglea, for which they received £16,372 per annum from the British State (an average of approximately £20 per boy). At that time they owned four industrial schools in total for which they received a total grant of £22,626 per annum. Later in the book he describes the peculiar manner by which the legal requirements governing the commitment of children to industrial schools were bypassed.
I have known instances of priests having been drawn from amongst the pupils of industrial schools; and I am naturally led to ask the question, Is that why the priests are so keen upon the management of those State-supported schools? It is not right to depreciate a human being because of his lowly origin; but children, before admission to these schools, have to be convicted before a magistrate as vagrant beggars. If they are not absolutely tramps' children, they have to be put through the degradation of being sent on the street by an industrial school's pimp, and thus they court arrest at the hands of a collusive policeman. I actually saw the tragedy enacted in Grafton Street, Dublin, recently.
(Priests and People in Ireland, page 583)
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