Commission To Inquire Into Child Abuse - Continuance By Irish Free State

Continuance By Irish Free State

After the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, little was done to update the 1908 Act or to ensure that its rules were observed, particularly those on corporal punishment. The purpose of the Act was to humanise reformatory and industrial schools and orphanages, and to reduce physical punishment. The 1908 Act regulations remained in force in Ireland almost unchanged until the 1970s, while elsewhere in Europe more progressive regimes developed, mainly after 1945. In contrast, the 1941 Children's Act, drafted while Éamon de Valera was briefly Minister of the Department of Education, reduced the minimum age of inmates to below 6 years, allowing small children to be detained because of their parents' poverty.

From the 1850s on day-to-day management had passed to several Orders affiliated to the Irish Catholic Church, as it insisted on educating its younger members. Oversight was the duty of the British administration in Ireland, and then of the Irish Department of Education from 1922 on. 5 Protestant schools had also existed, with the last one closing in 1917. Maintenance costs were paid by the department on a capitation (head-counting) basis, but the internal accounts of each school were never published. Over decades the Orders would typically answer any official complaint by pointing to the low capitation amount.

A major review of the system by Thomas Derrig in 1933-36 left it largely unchanged, as did the 1941 Children's Act. It has been suggested that Derrig refused to reform the system in line with the British reforms of 1923 and 1933 because of his strongly anti-British stance during the Irish independence process in 1916-23. The critical Cussen Report (1936) that followed, and a report in 1946-48 by the Irish-American priest Father Flanagan, were shelved. Archbishop McQuaid of Dublin sought a private report on Artane from Father Moore in 1962, but this was also shelved.

Other bodies such as the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC; before 1956 the NSPCC) were also involved in sending needy children to the institutions, for want of alternatives. Some 60% of their cases were referred by the parents. In the 1940s the Society had pointed out that higher social welfare payments to poor families would be cheaper than paying the capitation amounts to industrial schools.

The numbers of child inmates peaked in the early to mid-1940s. Numbers declined after the introduction of "children's allowance" payments in the 1940s. The Adoption Act 1952 and increased wealth and other social welfare measures reduced the number of needy children in the 1950s. Family shame often sent the mothers of illegitimate children to similarly-run Magdalen Asylums.