Residential Child Welfare in Ireland, 1965-2008: an Outline of Policy
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Chapter 4 Residential child welfare in Ireland, 1965-2008: an outline of policy, legislation and practice: a paper prepared for the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse1 Dr Eoin O’Sullivan, FTCD Senior Lecturer, School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2. Introduction 4.01 This paper aims to provide a review of the evolution of policy, legislation and practice in relation to child welfare, with a particular emphasis on residential childcare from the mid-1960s to the present. It does not claim to be exhaustive; rather it attempts to delineate a number of the key shifts in the organisation of child welfare in Ireland that have led to the current configuration of services.2 Furthermore, the paper does not fully embed the trajectory of change in child welfare services within the broader social, economic, cultural and political environment that shaped Ireland during this period. The changing role and status of religious Congregations is clearly of importance3, as are changing perceptions of the status and rights of children and the changing structure of the family.4 Similarly, the economic environment was significant in determining the level of funding available for child welfare, as was the political will for prioritising child welfare.5 Shifting forms of governance at national and local level have also shaped child welfare policies 1 In drafting this paper, I received considerable assistance from the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, in particular Ms Feena Robinson and the Commissioners themselves, and for this I am most grateful. Mr Alan Savage facilitated my access to relevant files in the Department of Health and Children and his courtesy and unfailing assistance was much appreciated. The paper has benefited from productive conversations over a long number of years with Dr Helen Buckley, Dr Shane Butler and Professor Robbie Gilligan. In particular, I would like to thank Jessica Breen and Nicola Carr for their unfailing assistance and contribution to this paper. 2 For example, the paper does not deal with adoption policy during this period, although it may be argued that the legalisation of adoption in 1952 contributed, in part, to the decline in the numbers of children placed in residential care. For further details on adoption policy in Ireland, see Shanahan, S (2005) ‘The Changing Meaning of Family: Individual Rights and Irish Adoption Policy, 1949-99’. Journal of Family History, 30, 1, 86-108 and Maguire, M (2002) ‘Foreign Adoptions and the Evolution of Irish Adoption Policy, 1945-1952’. Journal of Social History, 36, 2, 387-404. 3 See Fuller, L (2002) Irish Catholicism since 1950: The Undoing of a Culture. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan and Donnelly, JS (2002) ‘The Troubled Contemporary Irish Catholic Church’ in Bradshaw, B and Keogh, D (eds) Christianity in Ireland: Revisiting the Story. Dublin: The Columba Press. 4 See for example, Curtin, C and Varley, A (1984) ‘Children and Childhood in Rural Ireland: A Consideration of the Ethnographic Literature’ in Curtin, C, Kelly, M and O’Dowd, L (eds) Culture and Ideology in Ireland. Galway: Galway University Press; Kennedy, F (2001) Cottage to Cre`che: Family Change in Ireland. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration; Walsh, T (2005) ‘Constructions of Childhood in Ireland in the Twentieth Century: A View from the Primary School Curriculum 1900-1999’. Child Care in Practice, 11, 2, 253-69; and Earner-Byrne, L (2007) Mother and Child: Maternity and Child Welfare in Dublin, 1922-60. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 5 See for example, Cousins, M (1999) ‘The Introduction of Children’s Allowances in Ireland 1939-1944’. Irish Economic and Social History, 26, 35-53; McCashin, A (2004) Social Security in Ireland. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan and Fahey, T, Russell, H and Whelan, CT (eds) (2007) Best of Times? The Social Impact of the Celtic Tiger. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. CICA Report Vol. IV 245 over this period.6 These broader issues are well-documented elsewhere7 and it is therefore the intention of this paper to focus in a singular way on the specifics of residential childcare. Neither does the paper attempt to provide an interpretation of the shifts in the function, organisation and delivery of residential care in Ireland. Rather, by utilising the archival records of the Government Departments centrally concerned with this area of public policy, the Departments of Health and Education, supplemented by a secondary literature, the paper hopes to outline the intent and shifting concerns of policy makers, policy activists and service providers during the period under review, particular the crucial period between 1965 and 1975. 4.02 The paper suggests that the key debates in relation to the organisation, structure and delivery of child welfare services, in particular residential childcare services took place between approximately the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s, culminating in the Government decision of 11th October 1974 to ‘allocate to the Minister for Health the main responsibility, including that of co- ordination in relation to child care’. Although the intent of Government may have been clear, the absence of clear guidance on what ‘main responsibility’ entailed was to cause considerable administrative and Ministerial difficulties over the next 30 years.8 In relation to residential child welfare services, the publication of the Report of the Committee of Enquiry into Reformatory and Industrial Schools’ Systems (Kennedy Report) in 1970 is an important catalyst in these debates. The analysis of the child welfare system, particularly residential childcare, provided by the Committee crystallised a view of the system that had gained significant momentum in the second half of the 1960s that significant reform of the system was required, and the report acted as a spur in its aftermath for the realisation of organisational change. 4.03 The same Government decision that allocated to the Minister for Health primary responsibility for childcare also established a Task Force on Child Care Services which submitted its report to the Minister for Health in late 1980. This report exposed a number of difficulties that had emerged in relation to implementing desired changes. These included the difficulty of devising new legislation, despite an acknowledgement that it was required and the scale of the organisational changes required. An evolving external environment exacerbated this, with a professional childcare and social work cadre emerging alongside a decline in the role of Catholic Religious Congregations in the delivery of childcare services. Eventually, primarily due to inter-departmental difficulties and a lack of consensus on particular aspects of child welfare policy, particularly in the area of juvenile justice, a staggered repeal of the Children Act 1908 emerged with the Child Care Act 1991, the Educational (Welfare) Act 2000 and the Children Act 2001, primarily sponsored by the Departments of Health, Education and Justice respectively. Ministerial responsibility for child welfare services was formalised in the early 1990s. With the raising of the age of criminal responsibility to 12 (with certain exceptions) in 2006 and the ending of the role of the Department of Education in the administration of residential childcare in 2007, the core recommendations of 6 The changing role of the Irish State is debated in Adshead, M, Kirby, P and Millar, M (eds) 2008) Contesting the State: Lessons from the Irish Case. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 7 For a representative sample, see Girvin, B (2008) ‘Church, State and Society in Ireland since 1960’. Eire-Ireland, 43, 1&2, 74-98; Fuller, L (2005) ‘Religion, Politics and Socio-Cultural Change in Twentieth-Century Ireland’. The European Legacy, 10, 1, 41-54; Daly, ME (2006) ‘Marriage, Fertility and Women’s Lives in Twentieth-Century Ireland’ (c 1900-c 1970). Women’s History Review, 15, 4, 571-85; Foster, RF (2007) ‘“Changed Utterly”? Transformation and Continuity in Late Twentieth – Century Ireland’. Historical Research, 80, 209, 425; Ferriter, D (2008) ‘Women and Political Change in Ireland since 1960’. Eire-Ireland, 43, 1&2, 179-204 and Breathnach, C (2008) ‘Ireland Church, State and Society’, 1900-1975. The History of the Family. 13, 4. 333-9. 8 As McCullagh has argued in relation to the juvenile justice system ‘Since the foundation of the state, there has been a remarkable agreement about the juvenile justice system. There was consensus that it was not working, there was considerable consensus over how it should be reformed, and there was a seeming consensus that nothing would or could be done about it.’ McCullagh, C (2006) Juvenile Justice in Ireland: Rhetoric and Reality in O’Connor, T and Murphy, M (eds) Social Care in Ireland: Theory, Policy and Practice. Cork: CIT Press. p 161. In a similar vein, O’Connor observed: ‘One of the puzzling enigmas of Irish Social Policy is the contrast between, on the one hand, the clear endorsement of the family as the pivotal unit in Irish Society and, on the other hand, the reluctance up to very recently to initiate legislative reform to protect the most vulnerable members of that group – children. O'Connor, P (1992) ‘Child Care Policy: A Provocative Analysis and Research Agenda’. Administration, 40, 3, 215. 246 CICA Report Vol. IV the Kennedy Report were realised. In the intervening period, a range of issues not specifically discussed by the Kennedy Report were debated and policy decisions taken, particularly in relation to child abuse and specifically abuse in institutional settings.9 These debates are, of course, not unique to Ireland, and in recent years considerable debate has taken place on the extent and nature of abuse in residential childcare settings in, for example, the UK10 and Canada.11 4.04 This paper firstly provides an overview of the current configuration of child welfare services in Ireland. It then presents data on the shifting patterns of child welfare interventions between 1960 and the present, highlighting in particular the decline in the number of children in residential care.