Committee on Finance. - Children Bill, 1940—Committee Stage.
Sections 1 to 4, inclusive, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
I move amendment No. 1:—
Before section 6 to insert a new section as follows:—
(1) The managers of a certified school shall, from time to time as occasion requires, appoint a person to be responsible for the immediate control and supervision of such school, and every person so appointed shall be known and is in this section referred to as the resident manager of such school.
(2) The resident manager of a certified school shall reside ordinarily on the school premises.
(3) The managers of a certified school may authorise the resident manager of such school to exercise and perform such of their powers, functions, and duties (including in particular their powers, functions, and duties under Sections 52, 53, 67 and 68 of the Principal Act) as they think fit.
(4) If the Minister is satisfied that the resident manager of a certified school has failed or neglected to discharge efficiently the duties of his position or that he is unsuitable or unfit to discharge those duties, the Minister may request the managers of the school to remove such resident manager from his position and the managers shall comply with such request (unless withdrawn) within one month after receipt thereof.
(5) Every appointment of the resident manager of a certified school shall be made either—
(a) if the appointment is a first appointment and the school is a certified school upon the passing of this Act—within one month after the passing of this Act,
(b) if the appointment is a first appointment and the school becomes a certified school after the passing of this Act—within one month after the school becomes a certified school, and (c) if the appointment is not a first appointment — within one month after the occurrence of the vacancy calling for such appointment.
(6) The managers of a certified school shall, within ten days after appointing a resident manager, notify his name to the Minister.
Section 5, as originally drafted, was based on a recommendation contained in the Report of the Commission of Inquiry which stated at paragraph 70:
"We recommend (a) that the appointment of managers should be subject to the approval of the Minister for Education, and (b) that it should be within the competence of the Minister to report to his or her superior with a view to the replacement of a manager who was found unsatisfactory."
I think it is clear from that recommendation that the commission had in mind the person actually having direct and immediate control of the school. I feel that, as the Bill stands, the section may have been too wide, and that the new amendment makes matters much more clear. What is now proposed is that the person in actual charge of the industrial school or reformatory will be known as the resident manager. The expression "managers" is used throughout the Principal Act, and I am advised that probably that word connotes religious Orders, for example, having charge of the school. Of course, it was not at any time the intention that the Minister should take powers with regard to a religious Order in that sense. All that was sought was what, in fact, is now being made quite clear, that in the event of the resident manager, as we propose to call him, being found unsatisfactory, the Minister should have power to ask that he be changed. Sub-section (1) deals with the appointment of such resident managers. Sub-section (2) provides that he shall reside ordinarily on the school premises. Sub-section (3) provides for the delegation of their powers by the managers of the school to the resident manager. Sub-section (4) is the important clause. It states:—
If the Minister is satisfied that the resident manager of a certified school has failed or neglected to discharge efficiently the duties of his position, or that he is unsuitable or unfit to discharge those duties, the Minister may request the managers of the school to remove such resident manager from his position, and the managers shall comply with such request (unless withdrawn) within one month after receipt thereof.
It has been pointed out that, with regard to the principle in the existing Draft of the Bill—that the Minister should approve the appointment of the manager, now called the resident manager—the Minister might not have sufficient knowledge at his disposal to enable him to say whether the person to be appointed was suitable or not. Moreover, there is the question of the internal arrangements within a religious Order which might demand that the nomination of the manager lie in a certain direction, or that a certain person might have to be appointed. I think that the schools and all concerned will be satisfied with the new arrangements, whereby it is provided, as set out in sub-section (5), that the new appointment or first appointment is made with the least possible delay, within one month, and under sub-section (6) that notification shall be made to the Minister of such appointment within ten days. The resident manager will function, and if it is found that, for some reason or other, the resident manager so appointed is inefficient or unsatisfactory, the Minister can take steps to require that a change be made. That is really the essential thing that the commission recommended—that the Minister should have power to make a change or to recommend that a change be made, and it is thought that we should have legal sanction also to enable us to make such a change where the Minister considers it necessary.
Might I ask the Minister this: in the case of one of those industrial schools run by a religious Order where the resident manager may be, let me say, the Reverend Mother of a convent—I take it that that is what is anticipated— can the Minister ask that she be changed, not at the end of a year or anything of that kind, but at the end of a period?
Can he, during any year, give notice that she must be changed?
I think that will come against the constitution of certain religious Orders, will it not? I have not considered the matter, but would like to hear the Minister's views. Where the Reverend Mother of such an institution, or the superior of a Christian Brothers' Schools be appointed for two years by the Order, will the Minister have power to change them?
I have reason to believe that the schools will not offer any objection to this proposal. In fact, no great difficulty has arisen up to the present. The Department has been anxious, as far as possible, not to interfere except in cases where it was found absolutely necessary to raise this question of the removal of a manager. I find that the schools have been agreeable and anxious to cooperate, even to the extent of changing the manager, where the inspector felt that, for example, the manager might be getting rather old.
Mr. Byrne
Would that not be a matter for the Order concerned, and not for Government interference?
I do not think it is considered that we are interfering unduly in the matter.
Mr. Byrne
Personally, I think it would be considered as interference with the Reverend Mother or Reverend Superior. If they are getting old, that is a matter for their own Orders and not for the Government. I believe it would be resented very much. We are discussing this in a very small House, but I certainly think it would be resented. Government interference with the hospitals controlled by Orders was resented and will be resented for all time. Therefore, I take objection to any Government interference with these orders, either male or female. They have done splendidly up to the present.
This is an amendment we have seen only in the last couple of days and I take it that it has not been seen by the heads of any religious orders. Can the Minister tell us if he has communicated with them and if he has had any replies, or if he is merely guessing when he says they will not object? I am simply asking the Minister for information.
The officers of the Department are not available here at the moment but, in discussing this matter with them, I have been informed that those of the schools with which they have been in touch, including some of the largest and most important institutions, are satisfied with this proposal.
So far as I am concerned, I accept the Minister's statement that the schools are satisfied.
I cannot say that. I would not be in a position, without further inquiry, to say that all the schools are satisfied. I believe some of the schools may not have expressed any opinion, but the amendment has been introduced really to meet representations that have come from the schools in the first instance.
Has the Minister had a typed communication dated 4th January? It is a memorandum from the Industrial School Managers' Association, at their meeting held in Clery's on the 10th December, 1940 re the Children Bill, in which they say that the Managers' Association have had under consideration the different sections of the Children Bill, 1940, and although they agree with many of its provisions they are not satisfied with the powers proposed to be given to the Minister in certain parts and most particularly in Section 5, which reads: "No appointment of the managers or of any of the managers of a certified school shall be made save with the consent of the Minister." They object strongly and emphatically to the veto power herein contained and are unanimous in the demand that Section 5 be deleted entirely from the Bill.
Yes, I had that memorandum before me on the Second Stage of the Bill, when I indicated that certain amendments would be introduced. It is in furtherance of that promise that I have introduced these proposals, which, it has been confirmed to me now, meet the wishes of the Association of Managers of Industrial Schools. At any rate, quite possibly the Association may prefer that this proposal be not in the Bill at all. What I have been told is that, having regard to what the Minister's intentions are, the schools are satisfied with the proposal in its present form.
That is, that the Minister is leaving in Section 5 and adding this amendment to it.
Section 5 is being deleted.
There is no mention of that in the amendment.
I understood that the new section takes the place of Section 5.
The Chair got no intimation to that effect.
The amendment is: "Before Section 6 to insert a new section as follows:..." The draftsman advised the Department of Education that Section 5—the existing section— lapsed.
Does the Minister want to move for the deletion of Section 5?
And substitute another Section 5 for it?
If that is necessary, and if the Chair will permit it, I shall move for its deletion.
Will the Chair permit the Minister to move the deletion of Section 5?
If the Minister wishes to have Section 5 deleted, it could be done.
If the Minister were to withdraw this new section until the Report Stage and then come down definitely with the knowledge as to whether he wants Section 5 deleted or not on the Report Stage, I suggest that would be the best way to deal with the matter. We do not want to rush the Minister and if there is any mistake, would it not be better not to move this amendment or to withdraw it?
If the Minister will state now that he wishes Section 5 deleted, there is no technical difficulty.
Yes, that Section 5 be deleted.
The Minister's statement to us is that he had met the managers of these schools and that they are agreeable to this.
I have not met them personally, but the officers in charge of the industrial schools branch have been in touch with them and I am informed that they are satisfied with the new amendment, described as Section 6.
The Minister is satisfied that the managers are in agreement with this?
Then Section 5 is deleted, and this amendment is agreed to.
Amendment put and agreed to.
Section 6 put and agreed to.
SECTION 7.
Question proposed: "That Section 7 stand part of the Bill."
On Section 7, Sir, I want to raise a matter which might properly be raised either on Section 3 or on this section. This section provides that "the reference in Section 55 of the Principal Act to the buildings of a certified school shall be construed as including a reference to any grounds and premises used for recreational purposes in connection with such school." I want, on this section, to make the case for something that would attach some value to this Bill because, as it stands in its present form, I think it is barely worth the consideration it is getting, for it does nothing. The whole problem of juvenile delinquency in this country is involved in this Bill, and while we retain that fact in our minds we have got to remember also that the children in industrial schools are, in the vast majority, children who have been convicted of no delinquency whatever. The delinquents in industrial schools are a microscopic minority, but they are the problem children.
Now, I was privileged, during the lifetime of the late Mr. Cussen, who was the magistrate presiding over the Children's Court, to attend, from time to time, the proceedings in that court, and I watched with particular interest the method of dealing with delinquent children and saw many of them committed for delinquency to industrial schools. Again and again I was struck by the fact that the industrial schools did not provide one adjuvant to enable the magistrate presiding over that Children's Court to do substantial justice to the children before him, and that there were no premises where a child charged with breaches of the law could be put for the purpose of observation and medical report. Now, I am prepared to vouch to this House that six out of ten children convicted of delinquency before the Juvenile Court in this city and committed to industrial schools were not delinquent children but sick children, and that, instead of committing them to industrial schools as delinquents, they should have been sent to hospitals as sick children, there to be cured and restored to their families.
Now, do not let us in this house over-sentimentalise this problem. Many of the children brought to that court are "tough eggs", and you have got to remember that fact. City children of 14 and 15 years of age are very often as cute, as troublesome, and as corrupt as adolescent youths of criminal tendency of 18 or 19 in the country would ordinarily be, but, in addition to those "tough eggs" who want discipline and who have got to get it if they are to be protected from themselves, there are the children who are suffering under nervous strains of one kind or another and who manifest the symptoms of that nervous strain by delinquent conduct of a recidivist character. And we ought to remember this: that gravely as I have had to complain of much that went on in the Children's Court from time to time, as a general rule no child is taken from its parents and sent to one of these schools unless the child has been before the court again and again, and that is as it should be. The trouble, however, is that when the magistrate hears the story of this child's repeated offences he has nobody to whom he can turn for information as to whether this repeated return to misconduct on the part of the child is due to some physical or health defect or is due simply to chronic lack of discipline in that child's home, which discipline must be provided in an institution.
I put it to the Deputies of this House: supposing a Deputy of this House had a thirteen-year-old son who was not only mischievous but apparently vicious, and who, on being subjected to the normal correction of a Christian parent, returned to his vicious practice again and again, would any Deputy in this House send for the Guards, consign the child to Summerhill and thence to an industrial school, or would he go to the family physician and say: "Which is the best paediatrist in this city to examine my child and determine what it is that makes the child behave like a young savage?" Of course, the family physician would name two or three physicians in Dublin who specialise in the treatment of children's complaints, psychological and physical, and say: "If you bring him to that doctor he will probably prescribe a course of treatment that will make that child all right; or perhaps it is something wrong with yourself and you are not treating the child the right way, or there may be some inherent defect in the child's constitution which needs correction, and when that is corrected the child will become a normal kid like other children and you can send it to school in the ordinary way." If that would be the attitude of every Deputy in respect of his own children, what right have we to establish a system of industrial schools or reformatory schools in this country which does not permit the children of the poor to get the kind of treatment our own children can get? Surely, as the trustees of the poor in this country, we have no right to withhold from the children that which we assume to be essential for our own children. That is all I am asking. I am not asking that a bold child should be elevated up and given opportunities and advantages that the well-behaved children of respectable or wealthier parents would not be able to get. I am not asking you to equip the industrial schools, in this country like a fashionable secondary school. I am not asking for any concession at all. Indeed, at this moment there is no question of mitigation of the rigours of discipline obtaining in any institution in the country.
All I am asking is that machinery and premises will be provided which would separate a child who requires discipline, and for whom discipline would be good, from a child who does not stand in need of stricter discipline, and to whom stricter discipline will do irremediable harm. I want to say at once that I have always received every courtesy and every facility I asked from the Minister for Education, or the Minister for Justice, to visit institutions such as the Borstal, or the reformatory and other institutions where delinquent juveniles are treated. Having visited them, I think it is true to say that the principals, certainly the principal of the Borstal and the reformatory, would agree with my contention, that a large proportion of the inmates of these institutions should be in curative establishments rather than in semi-penal institutions. The principals have to take those who are committed there and do the best they can with them. This Bill does not deal with reformatories and with the Borstal, but it deals with children who will end up in the Borstal, or in reformatories, if we do not take proper measures to provide, in their malleable age, either the treatment which will switch them away from what appears to be possibly criminal tendencies and restore them to the paths of normalcy and decent citizenship.
I appeared before this commission when it was sitting and I pressed that viewpoint upon them, at least to give us some kind of establishment where we could differentiate between the sick child and the bold child who requires discipline. This wretched commission, this incompetent, futile, hopeless, obscurantist body wrote the most idiotic report that ever disgraced a body of people that sat round a table to enquire into a grave social problem. There is not a country in the world, where the treatment of juvenile delinquents requires any attention that has not established a clinic. You have the Tavistock in London to deal with delinquency in juveniles, advising the magistrate who deals with charges. In New Jersey even under Boss Hague you have a most elaborate system of enquiry into the physical and psychological circumstances of the child before it is committed to a reformatory.
Mr. Byrne
Deputy Byrne reminds me of Glasgow. In Denver, Colorado, there is a well-known institution. The same is true of Chicago. I have no doubt that New York has a similar institution, and I know that San Francisco has one. With the continental system I am not as familiar as I am with that of New Zealand and Australia, where I know that such assistance is forthcoming. I do not know about Canada. Here in this country, which thumps its craw about a Christian Constitution, and where we hold ourselves up for our ultra-Christian development, the neurasthenic child which, as a result of neurasthenia comes into conflict with the law, can rot in institutions which have no facilities for dealing with that particular problem. We close our eyes to that. We simply do nothing but shake our heads. I often wondered what the Minister says to himself. Does he ever go and ask the heads of the Borstal, the reformatories, or the industrial schools about these children?
I have no responsibility for the Borstal, as the Deputy should know.
That is what tries my patience, this unimaginative blindalley outlook of the Minister responsible for education. What does he think is the ultimate end of the children who pass through his hands as juvenile delinquents? Does he lose interest in their future the moment they are shovelled into reformatories, or put into industrial schools? Does he ever sit down to ask himself when he is dealing with children of 11, 12, 13 and 14 what is the effect of the treatment going to be on them when they are 21 or 22 years of age? Is not that his problem? Ought he not go to the Principals of the Borstal and say: "Do you get many of my boys here?" Ought he not go to the reformatories and say: "I am very anxious to know what becomes of industrial school boys who are committed for delinquency." He gets up here and boasts of the fact that he has never done that, and that it is unfair to ask him to do that.
Is the Deputy entitled to misinterpret my remarks? I have made no such statement as the Deputy suggests. I simply stated that I am not responsible for the Borstal institution. I have never said that it was not my duty to look after the reformatories, and to take an interest in them.
The Deputy said that I got up and boasted that I had no responsibility for the children. If the Deputy wants that kind of thing he can have it.
I say if the Minister says he has no responsibility for the Borstal, and objects to references to it, that suggests that he does not realise how vital an interest of the Minister for Education in the Borstal ought to be, because the whole burden of my complaint is that by the imprudent treatment of juvenile delinquents, many of them end up in the Borstal.
It does not suggest any such thing.
I say that if one goes to the Borstal and asks those in authority to produce the history of boys there, one will be told that many of them are boys who were shovelled into industrial schools without adequate inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the delinquency for which they were put into these schools, and that if he had a clinic in which children could be segregated on the occasion of a first delinquency, and then properly treated they would never be in the Borstal. They are in the Borstal because no premises were provided in which these children could be looked after when there was still time to look after them.
The Minister has disclaimed any responsibility for control of the Borstal.
I know that. I am putting the responsibility on him, and I am asking that he should go to the Borstal, that he should go to the slums, go to the hospitals, or anywhere he thinks these children at adolescence may find their way and ask: "Has my treatment of these children during their childhood been responsible for putting them into the Borstal at 21?" It is the obscurantist idea that there is no responsibility for them that I inveigh against. Take my case. What responsibility have I for the Borstal; what responsibility have I for Mountjoy, what responsibility have I for Maryboro'? Is it a criminal offence on my part to interest myself and to be solicitous as to how these places are carried on? Should the Minister not be the protector of these children?
Should he not interest himself in their subsequent history, and if he discovers that a great many of them, who were under him in industrial schools end up in the Borstal, should he not have that inquired into? Should he not ask himself: How is it that my treatment did not prevent that? Then I think he would learn that a great many of his charges who end up in the Borstal are mentally deranged. I do not mean that they are mad, but I say that they are suffering from some psychological maladjustment which could more properly be set right in their childhood by adequate medical treatment. The fact that they are denied medical treatment in childhood when there is still time to give it, is the Minister's responsibility. The reason they are not getting it is, that no provision is made to provide the kind of institution that I want, where a sick child should be segregated from the vicious child and treated properly.
This Bill is not comprehensive.
Of course not. Deputies may ask why I get so vehement about this. Because, for the last seven or eight years, year after year, I have raised this question. Then when the commission was set up I was at once challenged: "Will you go before the commission and give evidence?" I said, "Certainly." I was asked: "Do you want to give evidence in private?" I said: "No, I want to give evidence in public; I want to be cross-examined in public, and I want every member of the commission to cross-examine me in public." Year after year after year, I have raised this question, and year after year after year, every futile, obscurantist and blind opposition is given to a proposal of this kind, God only knows why. It will not cost us as much as one day's operation of the maddest of the Government's schemes. The cost will be trivial; it will be impossible to devise a tax small enough to be appropriated exclusively to this service. It is going to save for this country dozens of children who will otherwise be converted into criminals through no fault of their own. Surely it is time for the Minister to face his responsibility in that matter, and to provide in this Bill, or some Bill, accommodation where the work I have outlined can be effectively done.
Mr. A. Byrne
During Deputy Dillon's speech I was almost breaking the rules of the House by loudly applauding his statement on this matter. It is one in which I have taken a very great interest, and probably by now I can nearly show a bias against every Bill brought into this House dealing with children. I am glad that the children have at last found a vigorous advocate. I have had many cases brought to my notice of boys and girls who are sent to an industrial school for periods which I and their parents and those who knew their cases thought were unjustifiable. The petty offences that they commit could be dealt with in an institution such as Deputy Dillon has outlined, and which are to be found in other countries.
I was brought into such institutions in various parts of America. I was brought into an institution in Glasgow such as has been outlined by Deputy Dillon. It was a large private house, and was controlled by nuns. When a child commits some small offence, instead of being brought to the police court, the parents consent to let the child go into this institution for a few weeks or months. Most of the rooms contained different types of toys and books, which would appeal to the children according to their age, and there was a medical officer attached to the institution. At the end of a month or so the child's mother would be told that the child had been cured. As a result of the work done in that institution, the parents were saved from having the children taken from them and put into an industrial school for five years. I do not want to be misunderstood, because I was misunderstood once before, as to what can be done in industrial schools. These schools are doing great work, but at least 25 per cent. of the children sent to industrial schools in Dublin City, if they were treated as Deputy Dillon has stated, would be sent back to their parents within a month.
Take school attendance cases. Is it right that a child who, owing to some special circumstances, is prevented from attending school, should be taken from the parents and put into an industrial school? I know of cases where poor parents could not provide boots or clothing for their children, and, in order to preserve their health, they kept the children from school in wet weather. Eventually they found themselves in the police court. If they could afford a solicitor or a counsel to appear for them, the case could be properly explained and the child sent home. Only last week a school attendance officer found a remedy for a child not attending school. Out of his own pocket the man, who has only a small salary, purchased a pair of boots for the child and got the child to go to school. If we give these children boots and clothing, and if they can get a breakfast, the majority of them will go to school. I would make an appeal on behalf of that class of people who are not able to defend themselves. There is no use in hiding the fact that most of those sent to industrial schools belong to the poorer classes. I appeal to the Government to establish an institution such as was outlined by Deputy Dillon. The late Mrs. Maud Walsh, who was a well-known advocate of the cause of children, several times suggested the establishment of such an institution.
Might I briefly cite a case which happened two years ago when I was Lord Mayor? A girl of about 16 came to the Mansion House with a large bag of books at least half a stone weight. I found from examining the exercise books that splendid marks had been gained in every subject and I said to her that they were very good. I thought she was going to ask me for a reference, as hundreds of others had, in order to get employment. I was about to write a reference for her when she began to cry, and said these were her sister's school books, that she was aged 13 and that she had been taken up for not attending school. That child had excellent marks, as I say. She was in the fourth or fifth book and, I think, had a medal for Irish. It was necessary to keep that child at home from school as her mother was ill. That child was taken away from the parents and put into an industrial school, and it took me three months to get the Minister to investigate the case and release the child. Is that a proper case for an industrial school? If such an institution as Deputy Dillon suggests was in operation, the committee would say that it was only necessary to caution the mother, and the child. I am afraid of going too far in connection with this matter, as I am very interested in it.
I am afraid the Deputy is making a Second Reading speech.
Mr. Byrne
I thank you for allowing me to say what I have said in support of Deputy Dillon's very earnest appeal. I suggest that most of the children who are brought up for not attending school regularly should not be sent to an industrial school, but that they should be provided with books and clothing if they cannot provide them themselves.
Is the Minister not replying?
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 8.
Question proposed: "That Section 8 stand part of the Bill."
Perhaps the Minister would explain what the section means?
The object is to provide reformatory treatment for youthful offenders over 16 and under 17 years of age instead of sending them to Borstal institutions. We are not changing the age limit for industrial schools beyond 16, but we are making a change in the case of reformatories.
Is the Minister raising the minimum age for entrance to the reformatory from 16 to 17 years of age?
No. We are raising the maximum age in the case of reformatories, but opinion is against doing that in the case of industrial schools.
Would the Minister give the reason for doing it in the case of the reformatory and not in the industrial school?
Borstal is a penal institution, pure and simple. If the court considers that reformatory treatment would be more suitable for boys or girls between the ages of 16 and 17, we think that it should have a discretion to send them there. Personally, I would have no objection to making a similar change in the case of industrial schools, but the feeling of these schools is against it. Those in control of industrial schools feel that, after the age of 16, it would be impossible for them to deal with offenders.
Would the Minister consider modifying the section to this extent: to allow the age of 17 years to stand for industrial schools, subject to approval being given by the managers? As the matter stands, we are applying here a kindly, beneficial corrective. We are saving a boy from Borstal by allowing him to be sent to a reformatory. As regards industrial schools, it might be quite proper for the managers to refuse to take a boy after the age of 16, but cases might arise in which it would be better for a boy to be sent to an industrial school than to a reformatory. I am thinking now of the case in which a boy was being committed for a first offence. In such a case the manager of an industrial school might be prepared to take a boy even though he was over 16 years of age. I would like to know if the Minister has considered that aspect of the matter: of allowing the beneficial effect of this raising of the age to apply to the industrial school as well as to the reformatory.
I have no objection to looking into the matter between now and the Report Stage, but I do not think we will be able to get an amendment on the lines suggested by the Deputy. I know that the industrial schools hold strong views on this matter, and that it would be useless to try to change them. Even if we did put in an amendment permitting boys or girls, between 16 and 17 years of age, to be sent to an industrial school, with the consent of the manager, I fear that that consent would not be forthcoming.
But you can keep them in industrial schools up to the age of 17?
Yes, but we cannot commit them to an industrial school after the age of 16.
A boy can be sent to an industrial school at the age of 15½ and kept there, without the consent of the manager apparently, up to the age of 17, but the position appears to be that after the age of 16 he cannot be committed to an industrial school for a year—up to the age of 17.
They are generally committed for more than a year. It could always be argued, no matter what age limit you fix, that boys or girls, up to the age of say 15 years and 11 months, would be committed, but that boys or girls who had reached the age of 16 years and one month would not be committed.
Except that there is this difference: that you can keep them there up to the age of 17.
What I was going to point out was this: the industrial schools say that, in the treatment of boys or girls over 16 years of age, quite different considerations have to be borne in mind. I gathered from them that they feel that a different industrial school system is necessary for boys or girls who might be committed after the age of 16 years from that provided for those under that age.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 9.
Sub-section (1) of Section 58 of the Principal Act is hereby amended in the following respects and shall be construed and have effect accordingly that is to say:—
(a) by the deletion in paragraph (b) of the words "wandering and" in both places where those words occur,
(b) by the deletion in paragraph (c) of the words "his surviving parent, or in the case of an illegitimate child his mother" and the substitution in lieu of the words so deleted of the words "one of his parents",
(c) by the deletion in paragraph (d) of the words "by reason of criminal and drunken habits" and the substitution in lieu of the words so deleted of the words "for any reason",
(d) by the insertion immediately after paragraph (g) of the following word and paragraphs, that is to say:—
"or
(h) is found destitute and is not an orphan and his parents or surviving parent or, in the case of an illegitimate child, his mother are or is unable or have or has failed to support him,
or
(i) is under the care of a parent or guardian who has been convicted of an offence under Section 12 of this Act in relation to the child", and
(e) by the insertion of the following words at the end of the said sub-section, that is to say:—
"Provided also that the Court shall not make an order that a child be sent to a certified industrial school on the ground stated in paragraph (h) unless—
(i) the child's parents consent or his surviving parent or, in the case of an illegitimate child, his mother consents to such order being made, or
(ii) notice of the proposal to make such order having been given to the child's parents, surviving parent, or, in the case of an illegitimate child, his mother, such parents, parent, or mother fail or fails to object to the making of such order within fourteen days from the giving of such notice, or
(iii) the Court is satisfied that the child's parents, surviving parent, or, in the case of an illegitimate child, his mother cannot be found:
I would suggest that amendments Nos. 2 and 3 be taken together, because my amendment deals with the same words as those in the Minister's amendment.
I move amendment No. 2:—
In page 3, to delete in lines 25 and 26 the words "for any reason" and substitute the words "by reason of negligence, inebriety, immorality or other similar cause."
Instead of giving the court power to commit "for any reason," as was laid down in the original draft of the Bill, I now propose to amend the section by inserting the words set out. It was indicated, on the Second Reading of the Bill, that the term "for any reason" was too wide, and that specific instances of parental shortcomings ought to be set out in the Bill. I have since carefully considered the matter. I have been in touch with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children—the Society, I may say, has been very helpful in this matter— and I feel that the new amendment will meet the situation. If the court is satisfied that the "negligence" is serious, then, obviously, that ought to be a ground for committal. Similarly, with regard to "inebriety and immorality." The phrase "or other similar cause" means any other reason which would follow from the three set out in the amendment. The expression in the original Children Act of 1908 was "by reason of criminal and drunken habits". Having considered the matter carefully, I felt that the section ought to be tightened up somewhat. Amendment No. 2, which we are now discussing, with Amendment No. 5 will, I think, cover all the cases that I have in mind, the types of cases in which I think there is a prima facie case for bringing the matter before the court and giving the court discretion to consider whether committal to an industrial school would not be in the best interests of the child.
Is the Deputy satisfied that amendment No. 3 is met by amendment No. 2?
I take it the two are being discussed together?
I asked that, but I do not know what your ruling was.
I see no objection to that course.
My amendment No. 3 reads:—
In paragraph (c), lines 25 and 26, to delete the words "for any reason" and substitute the words "by reason of reputed criminal and drunken habits."
The Minister and I agree that the original words "for any reason" are far too wide and should be deleted. The words I propose are "by reason of reputed criminal or drunken habits," the words in the old section being "by reason of criminal or drunken habits". The objection found in the working of the section, and the only reason for an amendment of it, was that it was very difficult, unless there had been an actual conviction, to prove that a person was of criminal or drunken habits. It was the matter of proof that gave rise to any difficulty, and my suggestion to put in the word "reputed" before the words "criminal or drunken habits" means that if it is generally known in the neighbourhood that a person is of criminal habits, or generally known that a person is of drunken habits, a child should be taken away, but there is no necessity for widening or enlarging the words. The Minister's amendment, to my mind, is shocking. What is meant by "negligence", as used in the amendment, in looking after a child? If a mother is negligent because she does not darn the child's stockings, is a child to be taken away from the mother? If a mother neglects to wash a child's face or darn a child's stockings, is the child to be taken away from her? That is the suggestion the Minister puts forward. His words are altogether too wide and I suggest that the word "reputed" is quite enough to deal with any difficulty that may arise, or has arisen up to the present.
I share the views of Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney on this matter. The only improvement on the Bill as it stands is that, for a phrase which openly challenges the attention, a word is substituted which gives the same powers to the court but does it in a way that will not be so much noticed by those who read the Bill. Not merely is the phrase altogether too wide, but it is altogether too vague, and it leaves it to the whim, if I may say so, of a district justice to interpret it in any way he likes. The chances are that it will be interpreted in one way in connection with poor parents and in an entirely different way in connection with rich parents. Where rich parents neglect their children, there will be no question at all of their being brought before the court because the children are well-dressed and their material welfare apparently looked after, but there may be a great deal more neglect in their case, so far as the proper bringing up of the children is concerned, than in the case of poor parents, but we need not be in the least afraid that the Act will be invoked against them.
What I object to in the Bill as it stood, and still object to in this amendment, is that it goes out of its way, quite unnecessarily, to meet the few cases the Minister referred to on Second Reading, to tighten up the Bill and to interfere more with the rights of parents. Again, I put it that the Minister approaches this whole question from a different angle from that from which I approach it. His idea is to find reasons for committing children to industrial schools; my inclination is to find reasons for leaving them with their parents. I do not want to find additional reasons for committing children, however high an opinion I may have of some of these industrial schools. Prior to the right of the State, prior to the right of industrial schools, and prior to the discretion of a district justice to interpret such a vague word as the word "negligence"—which, I presume, has reference even to the child, although it is so vague that one cannot be sure—is the right of the parent, and surely the Minister must be aware that the whole tendency of our modern life is to cut in on and interfere with the rights of the parents. Here we deliberately go out of our way to find further ways of doing it. That is the reason I object to the amendment.
If there is to be power to commit children more or less for the reasons which stood in the original Bill, I would want a narrower definition and not a wider definition. The Minister said—quite justifiably, but I think he was indulging in understatement when he said it—that the term was reason ably wide. It is so wide that it is quite as objectionable as the phrase in the Bill. I have not the remotest idea of what negligence may mean, and I have less idea of what a district justice may make out of it. Much will depend on his attitude as to the relative rights of parents, the State and children and we have no means of determining as between these rights in the Bill as it stands. I hold that the rights of the parent are fundamental, and that the very best of reasons must be given for interfering with or cutting down those rights, but if it is left to a district justice, who may be under the impression, as some of them are, quite honestly and bona fide under the impression that it is much better for a child to be sent to an industrial school, if a man in the office of a district justice approaches a case brought before him in that spirit, how is he bound by his conscience to interpret the word “negligence”? He is bound to interpret it practically in the very way in which he would interpret “for any reason”.
I ask the Minister to consider this amendment further. It does not meet the objections I personally have against this section, and I ask him, too, to note that we have solemnly recognised the rights of parents in our Constitution. I cannot say whether it is one of the phrases in the Constitution which was an expression of pious opinion, or one binding on future legislation. If the latter, you are deliberately violating the principle laid down there. Perhaps it was not meant seriously. I gather that it was not meant seriously, if such a vague word is to be used, and if district justices are to be given this immense latitude and power. There are district justices who believe that children ought, in their own interest, to be taken from their parents and sent to industrial schools. They are bound to give what is, in my opinion, a very objectionable interpretation of this word "negligence". There may be more negligence in the case of parents whose cases will never come before the court. I am very much afraid that "negligence" will be interpreted in a purely economic sense— the provision of proper clothing and food for the children. There are other important things in which a parent might be negligent. The word "negligence" may mean anything, and for that reason I object to it.
Cases have come before the courts in which, if the district justice had had discretion, he would have sent the children to an industrial school, feeling that it was in their own best interest that that should be done. There is a great deal of exaggeration in Deputy O'Sullivan's contention that the courts will interpret the word "negligence" in the widest possible way, and that there is a genuine risk that, under our present system, justices will commit boys and girls without proper cause. My anxiety is to give the justice sufficient discretion in a case which may not be covered by the 1908 Act. In my opinion, "negligence" covers a large number of cases, some of which might not be serious and others of which might be quite serious. For example, so little attention might be given to the cleanliness of children that a serious outbreak of skin disease might occur, affecting the members of the household. That has happened. There are also cases in which parents, even though in receipt of reasonable remuneration and in constant employment, do not look after the interests of their children in what members of this House would consider a reasonable way. If I were asked whether I would rather that the court should have discretion to deal with such cases—though they might be very few—at the risk of some justice making a blunder, or that, unless some definite offence had been proved against the parent, he would not be considered unsuitable, my inclination would be to take the first course, and to give the justice the greatest discretion possible. As I explained on the Second Reading, this amendment is on the lines of recent legislation in other countries.
They have not the Constitution we have.
Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney has referred to the difficulty of interpreting the phrase "criminal and drunken habits". An attempt is being made to get over that by inserting the word "reputed". I believe the word "reputed" will not carry you any further. On the contrary, I hold that it will bring in a certain amount of vagueness, and might easily create a situation that, merely because of a parent's ill-repute, he would find himself in court. It seems to me, not being a lawyer, that the word "reputed" is rather vague, and might involve all kinds of considerations. The word "negligence" would, to the ordinary justice, suggest the consideration whether the parent, having regard to his circumstances, was fulfilling his duty to his children. I ask the House to accept my amendment, which has been carefully thought out.
The word "reputed", which I have adopted, is not being used for the first time. If a Guard is in the witness box, you cannot ask him what his opinion is of the prisoner's character, but you can ask him what is the prisoner's character according to general repute. "General repute" is the only way in which the courts arrive at knowledge of what the character of a person is, that is to say, what the neighbours and people who know him intimately think about him. If it is found that drunkenness or criminality is difficult of proof because of absence of convictions, a person can say: "All the neighbours think that that person is of drunken or criminal habits." On that evidence, though there may never have been a conviction against the parent, the child might be taken from him. The Minister's word is altogether too wide, and I think my amendment would satisfy everybody.
I should like to get this question into its context. As I understand, the difficulties facing the promoters of this Bill are mainly founded on a conflict between two principles, one of which is that the family and family rights should be safeguarded. That recognises that the family is the best place for the upbringing of children. In the Constitution, it was laid down that, in exceptional cases, where the parents, by reason of some kind of physical or moral defect, failed in their duty, the State might intervene and take charge of their children. The second principle, which is contrary to the first, is that, on occasions, because the home is derelict or because of bad or evil influence, the State might come in, take young people out of the control of their parents—that being regarded as the proper method for the bringing-up of children—and hand them over to some outside influence.
I read the debate on the Second Reading of the Bill and I noticed that a laboured attempt was made to get these industrial or reformatory schools looked at in a newer light by applying to them the term "boarding school", as if the changing of a word in the case of these schools would change their type. I have had some experience of boarding schools. I know of no boy who came through a boarding school who was as good at the end as he was when he went in. I am not talking about industrial or reformatory schools. I am referring to the ordinary boarding schools in the case of which parents would have the youngsters under their eye when they went home at intervals on holidays. I do not think we gain anything by refusing to face the facts, by slurring over the difficulties of this question, by putting the term "boarding schools" on these places.
What are the circumstances in which children may be sent off to these industrial schools? I understand the complaint made by Deputies on this side to be that the Minister is for the first time introducing a new term, "negligence". In addition to that, for some reason, he has gone away from the term "drunken habits" and has introduced the term "inebriety". I do not know whether there is a distinction. I understood a man was described as inebriated when he had not gone the full length of being drunk and that inebriety is a slighter term and may result in more children being sent to these industrial schools than if the other term were kept.
Again, a memorandum was sent out with this Bill and on pages 1 and 2 of it we were given in series the grounds upon which people may be committed to industrial schools. The full grounds are not set out there. The full grounds are set out in the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Reformatory and Industrial School System. As far as that report goes there is a number of lettered paragraphs down as far as the letter (n), showing the grounds on which people may be committed to industrial schools. The first one is (a) if found begging or receiving alms; or frequenting any street, premises, etc., for such a purpose; (b) if found wandering and not having any home or settled place of abode, or visible means of subsistence; or if found wandering and having no parent or guardian, or a parent or guardian who does not exercise proper guardianship; (c) if found destitute, not being an orphan and having both his parents or his surviving parent, or in the case of an illegitimate child, his mother, undergoing penal servitude or imprisonment; (d) if under the care of a parent or guardian who, by reason of criminal or drunken habits, is unfit to have the care of the child; (e) if the daughter, whether legitimate or illegitimate, of a father who has been convicted of an offence under a particular Act; (f) if frequenting the company of any reputed thief, or of any common or reputed prostitute; (g) if lodging at a house which has been used for the purposes of prostitution; (h) if found destitute and if the parents are unable to support him, provided the parents consent. So it goes on, with one general provision—if it be shown to the satisfaction of the court that the parent or guardian is unable to control the child. Surely that is a wide enough circle within which to have the district justices operate their discretion in regard to this breaking up of family life.
The Minister, despite all these reasons why people may be committed, now proposes to introduce two new terms. Instead of the "drunken and criminal habits," which was previously in, we get "by reason of inebriety or other similar cause." The criminal habits, of course, are left out of these matters because criminal habits are referred to in the original Act, but two new phrases are introduced, negligence and immorality. What is the reason for having immorality put in here seeing there are so many grounds turning on the point of immorality for which a child may be committed?
In regard to this term, "negligence," the Minister says he prefers to give district justices a discretion. With all respect to them—and they are a group to be definitely respected for the way in which they have generally handled the law—there is no doubt about it that all justices and all members of any court develop idiosyncrasies. Are we going to break up family life just because of a particular view a district justice may take, or because he may operate his discretion in peculiar ways in certain districts? You give him a lead by this "negligence." What does it mean? The only example the Minister was able to give by way of concrete case was the situation that might arise where a child was living in a house where there was some infectious disease, and where the parent was not taking care to prevent that child developing a contagious disease. It is peculiar that in the report on which this Bill is supposed to be founded the only allusion made to contagious disease is made in regard to industrial schools, that owing to the way in which children have been sent to those schools suffering from contagious disease they have given the disease to children there. A recommendation was made to have a medical board set up to prevent the spread of contagious disease in the industrial schools. That recommendation has not been carried out. The committee found that there were industrial schools in which contagious disease was prevalent because children going there were infected. They asked that that should be stopped. Instead of that, no medical report is being asked for, but the Minister tells us that one of the reasons why children are to be committed is the very thing reported against—that the child may have developed a contagious disease. Such a child is going to be packed off to an industrial school to infect the rest of the children there. No medical examination is required.
I suggest, unless the Minister can give us some more concrete and more appealing reason for the introduction of this term "negligence," it at least should be dropped. As far as the word "immorality" is concerned, I want to find out what particular type of immorality does he contemplate that is not covered by the other clauses of the 1908 Act, which allow the sending of a boy or girl to an industrial school? I do suggest until we know and get a sort of court decision on the effect of the word "inebriety," it would be better to keep the word which has very often come before the courts for adjudication—"drunkenness." As regards the adjective which Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney suggests should be put before these two words, if the Minister would take them back to his legal adviser he would find the addition of the word "reputed" undoubtedly eases the situation. I think it meets the difficulty set forth in the Report of the Commission of Inquiry. It may not meet it completely, but it is not for the Minister merely to say, "I am not a lawyer; I do not know what the full effect of this word is, but I am not going to have it." I suggest he should find out what is the meaning of it, and see the effect of it.
The Minister may not be a lawyer, but we are passing laws and he is sponsoring laws, and he ought to know the meaning of the laws he is sponsoring. He does not seem to mind. If he finds it necessary —as may be possible—to tighten up the powers, let him enumerate them. I wish he could recognise—he does not seem to recognise—that there is a big principle at stake. I am surprised that others who continually insist on the sacredness of that principle have made no objection and have not raised their voices in this particular matter. But there is a big principle at stake, and he should not be allowed to violate that principle by a general term. There are objections, I know, to particularising, but if you are sincerely attached to the principle this is a case in which you ought to particularise and leave no vague terms. The Minister accused me of being guilty of exaggeration because I said a district justice would do so-and-so, would interpret the word "negligence" in a very wide sense. He must realise that what I objected to was that he could do that, that we are giving power into his hands which morally I do not think we have the power ourselves and, therefore, morally I do not think we have the power to give it to a district justice. I do not think we have morally the right to give one more blow to family life. I do not think morally we are entitled to help to break up family life as we are doing. I think on the contrary our efforts should be in the opposite direction, that we should face in the opposite direction, not in the direction mentioned by the Minister. I confess that though I have many things in my mind as to what a district justice might do and how he might interpret the word "negligence", I was still more alarmed at the defence of the section put up by the Minister. I find that disease—not merely dirty heads, but disease—can now apparently easily be a ground for taking a child away from the parents and sending it to an industrial school. That is the implication of the Minister's statement, and that is the Minister who objects because I refuse to hand over those sacred rights to the idiosyncrasies of any district justice. I share with Deputy McGilligan the greatest respect for the way in which that body of men have performed their duties, but I refuse to give to them or anybody else rights that I do not think they should have. The Minister said that he was only following the example of other countries. By interjection, I had to remind him that they are not blessed with such an important Constitution as ours; that they are not blessed with a Constitution which lays down as something to be revered those principles which the Minister now so light-heartedly proposes to violate. I am surprised, seeing that the Constitution was mentioned in the previous statements by some of us, that he justifies himself by turning to those countries which are not so happy as to live under such an ennobling Constitution as ours.
He says at the end of his speech: "The district justice has to determine whether the parent is doing his duty to his children". Now, that is the interpretation we have got from the Minister of what he means by his change in the law. It is now to be in the power of a district justice—I am giving the Minister's interpretation—to determine whether the parent is doing his duty to his children. That is certainly carrying us very far. If a district justice, for any variety of reasons, thinks that a parent is not doing his duty to his children, according to the district justice's view, he can take the children away from the parent, on whom rests the primary responsibility for the bringing up of the children, and send them to an industrial school. We have no right to give those powers, and I certainly say that bad as I thought the clause was before the Minister's explanation to my mind it is still more alarming now. He says there will be a few cases only. A little earlier he said that negligence covers a large number of cases.
On which leg is he standing—that the word "negligence" will refer only to a few cases, and therefore we need not bother our heads about it, or that it covers a large number of cases? I think the more considered statement of the Minister was that it covers a large number of cases. But supposing it covers only a few cases; why go out of your way, then, to interfere with an important principle merely to embrace those few possible cases that are not covered at present? If the parent— another phrase of the Minister's—does not look after the interests of his children in a reasonable way, the Guards can bring that parent before a district justice, who can interpret the law in that particular way. Surely the case made by the Minister is one that should condemn the clause. I would ask him to take seriously that principle of the rights of the family, and, instead of widening his Bill, to narrow it. I made that appeal already on the Second Reading. I made it in connection with another clause, that when he is administering the law, for instance —it is the same principle that is at stake—as to whether or not he will let a child out of an industrial school, his effort ought to be to find reasons for letting the child out and not for keeping the child in. I see the contrary attitude in the few clauses that this Bill contains.
As I am on my feet, may I make another suggestion? First of all, we, as Deputies, are in the unfortunate position that we get a series of amendments to a list of amendments to the original Bill. That may be technically excellent drafting, but it puts every Deputy in this House who is interested in the matter at a great disadvantage. If the original section had been repealed and re-enacted with the changes in it, things would be clearer, but what is the unfortunate parent whose rights are handed over to the mercies of the district justice—though ten of them may be quite reasonable, the eleventh may not be reasonable—to think when he gets a Bill like that into his hands? How can he find out what his rights are? It would be much better from the purely drafting standpoint had the other procedure been adopted, both from the point of view of the House and from the point of view of the people who will afterwards have to interpret this particular Act. May I ask, Sir, what is to be our procedure on this particular matter? There are two amendments. Both of them propose to delete the words that are actually in the Bill. I am against the Minister's, which is the less general amendment. I am in favour of Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's amendment. Will both be put to the House?
Both amendments propose to delete certain words. I assume the Committee will agree to the deletion. That will be the first question. Then the Minister's amendment will be put. If the Ministerial amendment is carried, the next amendment may not be moved.
I think you have made it quite clear. So long as the deletion is put first, we can object to the others then.
I think there is a good deal of substance in the arguments which have been put forward, and I will consider introducing an amendment on the next stage on the lines of Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's amendment. Deputy McGilligan referred to the boarding-school system. In referring to the industrial schools as boarding-schools on the Second Stage of the Bill, I, like other people, wanted to remove the impression which seems to be abroad, and which a good many Deputies in the House still seem to hold, that those institutions are purely penal establishments. I think if they are examined quite independently and free of prejudice it will be found that the persons in charge of those institutions are giving the very same type of education, for example, as is being given in more expensive establishments to which parents send their children and will continue to send them. Furthermore, with regard to the health and training of the children, I think everything possible is being done. I am not saying that as much can be done by the managers of those schools as by the parents in the ordinary household where the parents are fulfilling their duties, but I think there is no comparison whatever between the way the child is looked after in an industrial school and the way in which it would be treated, for example, in the great number of cases of destitute children which come before the courts.
I think there is no comparison whatever as regards the improvement of the position of these children when they are committed and I think the House ought to bear in mind what I stated on the Second Reading, that really it is largely destitute children and children committed under the 1929 Act who form the vast bulk of those sent to our industrial schools.
With regard to diseases, lest there might be any misunderstanding I should like to say that we have a medical inspector who visits the schools frequently. Each school has its own doctor and children are examined when they are sent to the industrial schools by the courts. Of course, the managers of the schools take every precaution to see that contagious disease is not introduced.
Did the Minister read page 24 of the Commission's report?
We have been trying to carry out those recommendations.
Have you carried out the more important recommendations? They found children suffering from trachoma, ringworm and other contagious diseases mixing with the other children. The Minister told us a lot about these schools. Does he know of a single parent who would be willing to send his child to an industrial school? I know of none.
A certain number of parents have given their consent.
Under court persuasion, possibly; but does the Minister know of any free agent who has yet offered to send a child to an industrial school? Does the Minister remember the old political slogan, that good government is no substitute for home government?
Is the same type of education given in the industrial schools as is given in the more expensive schools?
Schools that are more expensive, at any rate, than the ordinary national schools.
Will the Minister consider the desirability of conferring on the teachers in these schools the same pay and emoluments as the other teachers get, seeing that the teachers give education at least equal to that given in the other schools, and so implement the promise he once made?
I should be delighted, but the Minister for Education does not exercise complete control.
Am I to understand that the Government find difficulty in getting money for anything?
I understand that the Minister is prepared to meet some of the points raised by Opposition Deputies. It would be better, I suggest, to withdraw amendments Nos. 2 and 3 and await the Minister's amendment on Report.
Amendment No. 2, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 3 not moved.
I move amendment No. 4.
In page 3, to delete in lines 32 and 33 the words "or have or has failed"
This amendment proposes to remove words that do not seem to be necessary. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney has submitted a similar amendment.
Amendment agreed to.
Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney might consider whether amendment No. 5 meets his amendment No. 6.
I would rather that the Minister dealt with his amendment. I think that the Minister may have to reconsider the whole section.
That being so it would be better to hear the Minister first.
I move amendment No. 5:
In page 3, to delete in lines 36 and 37 the words "Section 12 of this Act in relation to the child" and substitute the words "Part II of this Act or of any of the offences mentioned in the First Schedule to this Act."
Part II of the Principal Act covers offences such as cruelty, allowing to beg, exposing children to risk of burning, allowing children or young persons to be in brothels; causing, encouraging or favouring seduction or prostitution of young girls. The offences mentioned in the First Schedule of the 1908 Act are taken from three Acts, the Offences Against the Person Act, 1861, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1885, and the Children (Dangerous Performances) Act, 1879. I do not think it is necessary for me to enter into any details about them. We have discussed this matter with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and I think in all cases where a parent is convicted of an offence under one of these three Acts mentioned in the Schedule of the 1908 Act, or in Part II of the Act, it is clearly a case where the court ought to be given discretion to commit the children of such parent.
The reason I wish, in amendment No. 6, to have the words "in relation to the child" omitted, is that a particular type of case that I have in mind might arise. The Minister says that he has been in communication with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. So have I, and they brought under my notice a particular case in which children were sent to an industrial school because the father had committed incest with the daughter. The object of this is that suppose a father commits a criminal offence in relation to any one of his children, he is unfit to have custody of all the children. I think the words "to any of his children" would be much better.
This was not recommended by the commission?
They did not advert to this?
Has there been any difficulty with regard to the law as it stands?
Some of the District Justices seem to feel that everything possible ought to be done to strengthen the law so as to cover cases which are not covered by the existing provisions regarding destitute children. In this particular matter I do not feel we are doing anything more than bringing the law up to what it is in neighbouring countries. If Deputies will read the Schedule of the 1908 Act they will agree that all these offences should be regarded as prima facie evidence.
Has there been difficulty discovered in the courts in sending a child to an industrial school where a parent has been found guilty of one of these offences?
I cannot call to mind a particular case.
Has the Minister a concrete statement from any justice that he found a doubt about the matter?
As a matter of fact, the number of cases where immorality comes in is very limited, I am glad to say; we have had only a few such cases. My attitude is that, as we are amending the law, it would be as well to make provision should such cases occur—I have not a record of any of them at present. If the House is agreeable, I think that we should strengthen the law where possible.
Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney is suggesting that if the Minister substituted the words "in relation to any of his children", it would be much better. The father commits an offence against the person. I think that is one of the offences that the Minister read out. I shall just put this point. Of the three classes of offence which the Minister read out, one dealt with an offence against the person. In other words, if a man is put in jail for an assault on somebody and the mother is alive, can the child of that man be sent to an industrial school? Surely some reference as to the person against whom the offence is committed is relevant? The Minister proposes to delete certain lines but Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney suggests that something should be substituted for these lines.
I think the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children feel that where any child is involved with other children, it should be feasible to bring them before the court.
I should like to have the Minister's interpretation of the amendment as it stands. Supposing, which we all hope will not happen, that I were to assault the Minister, and that I got twelve months for it, could the custody of my children then be taken away from my wife? Is the reference to this offence sufficiently related to any of the children, or need the offence be committed against the children to make this subsection operative? That is the point I am making.
It is a point which I should like to look into.
Amendment No. 5, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 6 not moved.
Amendments Nos. 7 and 8 go together.
I do not think so. One deals with quite a different principle from the other.
I move amendment No. 7.
In page 3, to delete lines 47 to 55 and substitute the following:—
(ii) the Court is satisfied that owing to incapacity or desertion on the part of the child's parents or his surviving parent or, in the case of an illegitimate child, his mother, the consent of such parents or parent may be dispensed with, or
(iii) one of the child's parents consents to such order being made and the Court is satisfied that, owing to incapacity or desertion on the part of the other parent, the consent of that parent may be dispensed with.
It is considered that the clause covered by lines 47-55 in the existing Bill should be deleted and that the amendment should be substituted. It is recognised, and it was pointed out on Second Reading that the existing clause would be difficult of interpretation and of enforcement. The amendment is simply a compromise which it is hoped will meet the feelings of Deputies. The first clause in the 1929 Act prescribed that, in case of destitution, the consent of both parents should be obtainable, or, in the case of a sole surviving parent, of that parent, or, in the case of an illegitimate child, of its mother. We are now seeking to have two further clauses inserted. The first provides that where the court is satisfied that owing to incapacity or desertion on the part of the child's parents, or his surviving parent, or, in the case of an illegitimate child, his mother, the consent of such parent or parents may be dispensed with. The second deals with a case where one of the child's parents consents to such order being made, and the court is satisfied that, owing to incapacity or desertion on the part of the other parent, the consent of that parent may be dispensed with.
My difficulty about the amendment is that it may happen that a child may not really be living with his parents. The child may be living with a grandfather or a grandmother. The guardians may be looking after the child reasonably well, and yet it is to be taken away. Therefore, I should prefer the whole provision to go out so that the child can only be taken with the consent of the parents. I am sure most Deputies know that it very often happens that the mother of an illegitimate child leaves the country, and that some relation takes charge of that child and really makes a home for the child.
Is it likely that in such a case the authorities are going to take action to try to prove desertion, if they know that the child is being looked after by its grandparents?
Of course the grandparents may be very poor. Remember, this is dealing entirely with the sending of children to industrial schools, not through any fault of the parents, but merely because of the poverty of the parents. This is solely a poverty section.
The Minister spoke about a compromise, but I am not sure between whom the compromise is intended to be made, or what two principles it was intended to meet. My objection on the last day, as well as I remember, was that you were fixing the time down too closely. From another source it was intimated to me that they want a strengthening of the power of committal, and to throw the onus on the parents to object. I think that is what the Minister is doing. He is throwing the onus, practically speaking, on the parent to make a case, to turn up at the court and to prove that the child should not be committed.
I referred already to this power of taking a child away from the parents because they are destitute. Apart from destitution, there may be cases in which, for instance, a man whose wife is ill, may find it impossible for the moment to deal with the children. He will go before the justice and ask that they should be sent to an industrial school. It is reasonable that such parents should be facilitated if the court thinks fit to do so, but I do not think there is any justification for the proposition that the children should be sent to an industrial school merely on account of the poverty of the parents, against whom otherwise no objection could be made, or merely because, in the opinion of the district justice, they cannot support the children up to a standard that the district justice thinks proper. I object to that, and I should prefer to see that section out altogether and nothing substituted for it. Surely the poverty of the parents alone should not be a ground on which power should be given to anybody to take away children without the consent of the parents? I presume the first duty to look after the interest of the children is that of the parent. The first duty does not lie with the State. If parents are poor or destitute, I must assume that they have, nevertheless, the interest of the child at heart, and I do not think power should be given in that case to commit the child to an industrial school, unless consent of the parents is forthcoming.
Then there arises a question as to the interpretation of the term "incapacity." I do not know what the section means in that regard. One expects "owing to incapacity" but here it is "owing to incapacity or destitution."
"Owing to incapacity or desertion."
Incapacity in what sense?
Does it not mean inability to support? Is not the whole section a destitution section? If it does not mean merely inability to support then what is the other meaning that is to be read into it? You are doing this to (h) shown in Section No. 9 of this Bill, where there is destitution and the mother or surviving parent is not able to support the child. Down further, the amendment would mean "the order shall not be made unless the Court is satisfied that, owing to incapacity or desertion, the consent of such parents may be dispensed with." If "incapacity" there means "mental incapacity" it is a different thing. That means "incapacity to give consent?'
I think it does mean incapacity to give consent. That is the obvious meaning.
If it does, it would be better to make that clear. I noticed that previously the words had been inserted which were struck out to-night. In (h) there had to be destitution in the case of a person not an orphan and where his parents or, in the case of an illegitimate child, his mother, are or is unable to support him. Below that, there is a phrase "that the Court is satisfied that the child's parents...cannot be found." If they cannot be found, how can one determine that they are unable to support him? One can determine that they have not supported him, but the words have been deleted.
I will see if the word "incapacity" can be improved upon on the Report Stage. There is no change in principle and it is not intended to have one.
Would the Minister say what the rule is as regards destitution under the Act as it stands at present—the Act, not the Bill?
The rule is that, if both parents consent, the child may be committed.
Why do away with that requiring of consent?
Where the parents come to court they nearly always consent, but cases have arisen where the consent could not be obtained. It was put to me strongly that, although the number of cases was small, an endeavour should be made to cover them. I have given up the idea that one can bring in these cases and I do not intend to interfere with the principle of consent of the parents.
That relieves my particular objection. In fact, the actual amendment as it stands says: "or desertion on the part of the child's parents". I do not know where consent is necessary, if this amendment passes.
It can only be dispensed with on the grounds of incapacity or desertion.
I would suggest to the Minister that he could indicate it very simply by saying: "the court is satisfied that the child's surviving parents or, in the case of an illegitimate child, his mother, cannot be found or is mentally incapable of giving consent" or words to that effect.
Will the Minister reconsider this?
I cannot see that what Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney suggests involves anything new. It is merely a question of phraseology, and there I am largely in the draughtsman's hands.
If this amendment is agreed to, and the Minister's proposed amendment does not cover Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's point, the Deputy might table an amendment on the Report Stage.
I will let it stand, if the Minister will consider it on Report Stage.
I understand that the Minister will consider whether "mentally incapable" will interpret it clearly and also that the section will not in any way interfere with the consent of the parent any more than the original Act does.
Amendment No. 7, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 8 not moved.
I move amendment No. 9:—
In page 4, to insert a new proviso after line 8 as follows:—
"And provided always that when it shall appear good to the Court the Court upon an application to commit a child to a certified Industrial School may in its discretion order that the child be returned to his or her parent or parents as the case may be, and that there be paid out of public funds to the said parent or parents for the maintenance of the said child a weekly sum equal to the average weekly cost payable out of Public Funds for the maintenance of a child in a certified Industrial School."
I am endeavouring to introduce a new principle into these Industrial Schools Acts altogether. I am not going to labour the point which my friend Professor O'Sullivan has made already and which really does not require any stressing on my part—that the correct and proper place for rearing a child is the home, the foundation of Christian society, and that it is a wrong thing that persons should be penalised for poverty or that a family should be broken up merely because it is poor. It is a wrong thing that a parent should be deprived of his or her child merely because they are poor and it is an injustice to the child itself that it be deprived of the advantages of parental training. Nothing can make up to a child for the loss of its home. It is all very well for people to say that these schools are excellent and are well run. They may be. I am not suggesting that they are not, but there is not found there that affection which the child has for the parent. That cannot be instilled into him in a school. Unselfishness, the putting of other members of the family before oneself, cannot be instilled into him in a school. It is really a desperate thing that families should be broken up for mere poverty and that a child brought up in an industrial school should be in the position that it is a lone unit fighting with its hand against everybody's hand and everybody's hand against its hand, instead of regarding itself as a member of a family with brothers and sisters to whom it can look for help and sympathy and to whom in turn they can look for help and sympathy. My suggestion is that when, on the grounds of mere poverty of its parents, the child is brought before a court, the court should have power to order that that child be returned to the custody of its parents and that the parents be paid each week the sum of money which would be paid for the upkeep of that child in an industrial school. If I am not mistaken—and I am sure the Minister will put me right on this—the average cost of the upkeep of a child in an industrial school is something like 15/- a week.
May I intervene to say that the Chair had doubts about the admissibility of this amendment on the ground of its involving an increased charge, actual or potential. The amendment was allowed on the assumption that the Deputy's proposal meant only the diversion of the capitation grant paid by the Government, from the institution to the parents.
Otherwise, it would be inadmissible.
There is something which is gained out of the rates?
I think, generally, it costs about 15/- a week.
The Deputy is not endeavouring to obtain more funds from the State?
Not one ha'penny more. I am only dealing with the money which would have gone to the institution and asking for its diversion to the parents of the child. It would be better to give the parent what it would cost to keep the child in an industrial school, and let the parent keep the child at home. Of course, I am only referring to cases in which the parent is entirely destitute. I am not suggesting that children should be sent to unworthy parents, nor am I suggesting that this should be done where there is a ground, other than poverty, for taking the child away. This amendment is simply referring to the children who are being sent away solely on the ground of the poverty of their parents.
I do not think I can accept that amendment. It does not seem as if the Deputy himself would be prepared to agree that it should come in properly as an amendment to this Bill. It seems to raise a very fundamental question, which might affect the continuance of these industrial schools altogether. Obviously, if there was a large number of district justices who had the same opinion as the Deputy, the children would all be sent home with a subsidy; whether by way of encouragement or otherwise of their parents, I do not know. It seems to me that the amendment involves the question of a new social service, and in connection with that we have already this system of industrial schools and also the system of boarded-out children, and the local authority very often deals with the problem under its boarded-out children scheme. The Deputy seems to desire to create an entirely new scheme.
Surely, the boarded-out children scheme only applied to orphan or deserted children, and not to children whose parents are alive and poor?
Well, in any case, there is a social service there, dealing with the problem under the local authority. Why the Deputy should imagine that the local authority, whatever the Government and the Minister for Finance might have to say about the creation of this new service for the assistance of parents, would agree to this I do not know. I do not know why he assumes that the local authority would be prepared to pay more in the case of these children.
I am not asking for more. I am only asking for the same sum. I want to make my position clear, and it is that when a district justice says that a child is a case for an industrial school, then a certain sum becomes payable to the industrial school if the child is there. Now, if the district justice can say: "I shall send this child back to its parents," let exactly the same sum be paid to them as would be paid to the institution if the child were there. He cannot do it except in a case where he would send a child to an industrial school.
The grant from the Government and the local authority is supposed to cover not alone the clothing and feeding of the children, but their education and training, and also to cover the expenses of the institution. These are the only funds available to these institutions, and the Deputy suggests that the full extent of the money which goes for the maintenance of the child in an institution should be made available to the parents. Even if the principle were agreed upon, and we should embark on this new policy, I do not think that you could possibly contemplate giving the same allowance for the child being maintained at home by its parents.
I think that under the widows' and orphans' pensions scheme and the other schemes I have mentioned provision is being made already, and I do not think this is the way in which this matter ought to be tackled. If the Deputy feels that more ought to be done for destitute children in another way I think he ought to raise the matter in a different fashion. At present he wants to benefit these children, assuming that his own theories are the right ones, at the expense of the industrial schools and possibly at the expense of closing down all the industrial schools altogether. Of course, I could not stand for that, and I am satisfied that the schools are carrying on an essential work and carrying it on satisfactorily. We are not able to give them the grants that are given to similar institutions in neighbouring countries. If we were, we would probably be able to do much better. With regard to vocational training, for example, we do not give them anything like the grants they give them in Great Britain. The Deputy suggests that even what we are giving them, with whatever financial advantages are conferred on them for having the number of children committed to their care, ought to be taken from them altogether. Accordingly, there is a fundamental disagreement between us, and I could not possibly accept the principle of the amendment, which simply means that parents who are destitute would get the State to give them a subsidy for the maintenance of their children at home—something that was never contemplated under the Children Acts.
I should recommend the Minister to read over what he has just said and see whether this is not the conclusion to be drawn from it: children must be sent to industrial schools, not because it is best for them, but to keep up the schools; the schools are not there for the children, the children are there for the schools. Apparently, it is quite irrelevant whether the best thing is to have the child educated in the home. It may be. After all, Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's Christian view may be correct: that the best place is the home. But we cannot acknowledge that because we must postpone the interests of certain children and subordinate them to the necessity of keeping up the institutions. That, to my mind, is an amazing defence. I used to be under the delusion that the principle was that the schools were there for the children. I do not say that that was universally accepted. I know that there was a drive to get children into the schools, and very often the means were rather inclined to submerge the end that was to be served, but that the Minister could calmly come down here and say: "It does not matter what is best for the child. I have to think of the schools and keep them up, and because the State cannot afford the money, therefore, I must sacrifice the interests of the child, or at least what some Deputies think are the interests of the child, to the upkeep of the schools because the State cannot give sufficient grants such as they give elsewhere. The problem might be different if the State could give these grants, but since the State refuses to give more grants I must see that the schools are provided with a sufficient number of recruits in order to keep the schools going, or else they will almost collapse." I must say that I was absolutely amazed to hear that particular case put forward.
I think the amendment might be open to abuse. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney has in mind the institution of family allowances for children, which would be the way to meet the situation. The very fact of bringing in such an amendment might be open to abuse, and would not meet the point that the Deputy has in mind, that proper provision should be made, by means of family allowances, where parents have no wages or are unemployed. The kernel of the whole question is that there is no provision in the Unemployment Acts or in the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Act for the proper upbringing of children, the amounts allowed being too small. To put in this amendment would not meet the definite need for the proper care and upbringing of children whose parents may have small or, in some cases, no means.
According to the statistics for 1939-40 given by the Minister on the last occasion, 37½ per cent. of the committals were on the ground of destitution, not being orphans or whose parents consented to committal. That meant that there were cases where parents consented to children being sent to industrial schools because they could not support them. In regard to that particular percentage, this amendment does not represent Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's last word. He wishes to divert the State grants to let us see how many parents afterwards, on the grounds of destitution, agreed to let the children go.
It is either going to be confined to destitute children who come before the courts in the ordinary way, or extended to the whole country. Supposing, for the next month or two, if this provision were in operation, all the parents brought before the courts under the provisions of the Act of 1929 met with district justices who gave them grants which would be given to the industrial schools if the children were committed and told them to go home, is it not obvious that there would be hundreds or thousands of parents clamouring to get into the court under the 1929 Act to get the district justices to give them the subsidy? As Deputy Hurley pointed out, if we want to give that type of assistance to the parents of destitute children, the obvious way is to institute family allowances.
Surely it would be discretionary with the parents? Otherwise a parent might find a child gone to an industrial school and the child would have no choice.
Would the Minister really be horrified at a situation that might arise in five or ten years' time, if it was found that the 37½ per cent. of children sent to these schools had lessened to 5 per cent., and that certain schools had to be closed, their place being taken by the home with a slight supplement by the State? Surely that would be a desirable achievement?
What I would be afraid of is that some children might be sent in order to get the allowance.
Amendment put and declared lost.
Question proposed: "That Section 9, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
There are a few matters on which I desire enlightenment. What is the purpose of deleting the words "wandering and"?
I explained on the Second Reading or in the explanatory memorandum that there does not seem to be any legal definition of the word "wandering" given in the Principal Act. I am advised that this provision has been generally interpreted as if the word had no material effect to the contrary. I have given the matter a good deal of consideration, and I feel that leaving out these words would help to improve the law and give some further discretion to a justice in border-line cases, in fact, that it should not be necessary to prove that "wandering" has occurred.
I take it that the quotation from page 13 of the report of the commission is an exact transcription of the law and is brought in for comment. If we strike out the words "wandering and" where they occur at the end of page 13 and at the top of page 14 we get this, "if found not having any home or settled place of abode, or visible means of subsistence, or if found having no parent or guardian, or a parent or guardian who does not exercise proper guardianship" would that mean that merely having no parent or guardian is now a ground for consent to be sent to a school? I do not know whether that would be the effect. I am sure that the word "wandering" has never been susceptible of easy meaning. Was this recommended? I do not think it was.
As I pointed out, a number of matters was not recommended by the commission but on examining the recommendations closely we came to the conclusion that this was a desirable amendment.
This is the way it stands from the transcription of the section: "or if found having no parent or guardian". Perhaps the Minister will look into it before the Report Stage? What is the point in the proposal to delete the words: "his surviving parent or, in the case of an illegitimate child, his mother". Supposing one of the parents, the father, happened to be in penal servitude, the mother could be deprived of the child?
I do not assume that in every case that comes before the court the mother is going to be deprived of the child.
Should power be given to deprive the mother of the child because the father is in penal servitude? Should that power be given to a district justice who, like the Minister, may be keen on the necessity of keeping up industrial schools and may want to send additional recruits to them?
A case has actually occurred where a father in penal servitude refused to give his consent. The district justice felt that the child should be committed, and where a district justice, who is in constant consultation with his probation officer and, generally, with the officers of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children also, considers it would be to the child's advantage that it should be committed, I am prepared to accept his decision. I do not know whether the child in that case was eventually committed or not, but, at any rate, the father refused to give his consent for a considerable time. The number of those cases is small, but on balance, as I said more than once, my feeling is in favour of giving the discretion to the district justice.
That is not the type of case I referred to, namely, that you can take power to prevent a parent who is undergoing penal servitude from withholding his consent; you can take power to ignore that. What I am objecting to is the Minister's taking power to ignore the consent of the parent who is not guilty of anything. Is not that the effect of the section as it stands?
I do not think the section that is being amended here is a consent section, at least not the part that is being amended. The part that is being amended has nothing to do with consent.
The main provisions in this respect are that the child may be so committed if found destitute, or if one of the parents is undergoing penal servitude. I do not think a child ought to be taken from the mother unless she is guilty of some offence.
Even if the father gave consent in the case I mentioned the child could not be taken.
I suggest that the Minister should meet the case. That is not the case he is meeting. He is not interfering with the power of the parent in jail to object. What he is doing is ignoring the right of the parent who is not in jail and who may be an excellent person.
So far as I understand, you are leaving in the consent part of the section.
It is only a case which comes before the court.
Where a father is undergoing penal servitude and objects the child cannot be sent. Is not that right? I cannot get the reference, but I am joining these things together in the report and it looks to be that way.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 10 and 11 agreed to.
SECTION 12.
I move amendment No. 10.
In page 4, to insert before paragraph (a) a new paragraph as follows
(a) by the deletion in sub-section (1) of the word "eighteen" and the substitution in lieu thereof of the word "six", and
This is to enable a child to be released on a supervision licence within six months after he has been committed instead of 18 months as at present. With the provisions that we are making for reducing the period of committal, we think that after six months there ought to be discretion to allow the offender out under supervision. Deputies will see from the following amendment that, in order to meet the views expressed on the Second Reading, the documents referred to as "licences" in this connection will in future be known as "supervision certificates." The effect of the amendment is to reduce the period after which the offender may be released under supervision from 18 to six months.
Amendment agreed to.
Section 12, as amended, agreed to.
Section 13 agreed to.
SECTION 14.
I move amendment No. 11.
To insert before Section 14 a new section as follows:—
(1) The documents referred to as licences in Sections 67 and 68 of the Principal Act shall be known as supervision certificates and the said documents shall be framed accordingly.
(2) This section shall be construed as effecting no more than a change in the name of the documents to which it relates.
I have just explained that we are altering the expression "licences" in Sections 67 and 68 of the Principal Act to "supervision certificates". Deputy Hickey and other Deputies seemed to think that the term "licence" was opprobrious or carried a stigma.
It is funny to leave the term "licences" in Sections 67 and 68 and to declare that they shall be known as "supervision certificates.
The draughtsman says that if the amendment is passed the expression "supervision certificates" will rule all through.
It is the same as if you wrote in the words "supervision certificates" where the word "licences" occurs?
The documents referred to as "licences" shall be known as "supervision certificates", but they are licences. Could not this have been more simply done by moving to delete the word "licences" everywhere it occurs in Sections 67 and 68 and to insert "supervision certificates"?
That is the advice we got. If the words "supervision certificates" come into general use, I think that will be important.
Amendment agreed to.
Section 14, as amended, agreed to.
Section 15 and 16 agreed to.
SECTION 17.
Question proposed: "That Section 17 stand part of the Bill."
What is the effect of this?
This section provides for the deletion in Section 73 of the Principal Act of the reference to State assistance towards the expenses of disposing of children in certain schools by emigration. It was never intended, I think, in this country that Government assistance should be given to enable children to emigrate from certain schools. We are deleting that and also the proviso limiting to 2/- per head per week the amount of assistance payable from State grants in respect of children committed to industrial schools at the instance of their parents. There are a small number of children in industrial schools at the instance of their parents. I should have mentioned that to Deputy McGilligan when he asked the question.
A small number, at any rate, have their children there at their own desire, and pay something towards their maintenance. Under the Principal Act, this contribution is limited to 2/- per head per week. The schools, in fact, would not consider 2/- as being a reasonable contribution, and hence we feel that the proviso should be taken out. If parents wish to contribute towards the upkeep of their children, well and good.
What is the objection to emigration?
Well, I think the objection really is that there might be a feeling that some Government might attempt to get rid of children by paying a subsidy towards their emigration.
If this is accepted the position will be that it will never be possible, even in an exceptional case, to pay any part of the expenses of a child going abroad. Take the case of a child's uncle who is in a good position in Australia or New Zealand. If he desires to take the child out from an industrial school here, would the Minister not think it a proper thing to permit whatever was the old system to rule in that exceptional case? A case of the kind would not happen often.
We have no evidence that it has ever happened. The section dealing with this in the Principal Act of 1908 reads:
There shall be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament such sums on such conditions as the Secretary of State may, with the approval of the Treasury, recommend towards the expenses of any youthful offender or child detained in a certified school, including the expenses of removal in the case of any offender or child ordered to be transferred from one school to another and towards the expenses of disposing of any such offender or child by emigration.
That would seem to bear the connotation that you were simply deporting a young person out of the country.
But, I take it, before that could be done the Minister for Education and the Minister for Finance of this Government would have to agree?
Well, now, is it seriously contemplated that there is going to be mass emigration?
I cannot see that the question is ever likely to arise. If it ever did, I think it could be dealt with in a different way.
Supposing an exceptional case of the kind that I have put did arise, is there any fund out of which help could be given to a child?
Question put and agreed to.
Section 18 and 19 agreed to.
I move amendment No. 12:
Before Section 20 to insert a new section as follows:—
Section 75 of the Principal Act is hereby amended in the following respects and shall be construed and have effect accordingly, that is to say:—
(a) by the insertion in paragraph (b) of sub-section (2) before the words "chief inspector" of the words "local authority responsible under this Act for the maintenance of the offender or child or of the",
(b) by the deletion in sub-section (4) of the words "and on fourteen days' notice of such application being given to the chief inspector or person on whom the order was made" and the substitution in lieu of the words so deleted of the words "or of the local authority responsible under this Act for the maintenance of the offender or child",
(c) by the addition at the end of sub-section (4) of the following words and paragraphs, that is to say, "and where any such application is made, fourteen days' notice thereof shall be given—
(a) in the case of an application by the person on whom the order is made, to the chief inspector,
(b) in the case of an application by or at the instance of the chief inspector, to the person on whom the order is made, and
(c) in the case of an application by or at the instance of the local authority responsible under this Act for the maintenance of the offender or child, to the chief inspector and to the person on whom the order is made", and
(d) by the deletion in sub-section (7) of the words "All sums received under this section shall be paid into the Exchequer" and the substitution in lieu of the words so deleted of the words "Every sum received under this section shall be apportioned between the Minister for Education and the local authority responsible under this Act for the maintenance of the offender or child in such proportion as the said Minister, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, directs",
(e) by the deletion of the words "paid into the Exchequer" where those words occur at the end of sub-section (7) and the substitution in lieu of the words so deleted of the words "apportioned as aforesaid", and
(f) by the insertion at the end of the section of the following sub-section, that is to say:—
(12) Every sum apportioned to the Minister for Education under sub-section (7) of this section shall be paid into or disposed of for the benefit of the Exchequer in such manner as the Minister for Finance may direct.
The object of this amendment is to provide for an apportionment of parental money contributions between the Department of Education and local authorities. When children are committed to industrial schools or reformatories, the court sometimes fixes parental contributions, and these moneys are collected by officers of the Department. They do not amount to a very large sum. Representations have been made to us by the local authorities that an endeavour should be made to make an apportionment of these appropriations to them. Under this Bill we are taking power to make regulations imposing certain contributions on the local authorities for the upkeep of these schools. I have already pointed out that the present contributions are not considered reasonable. In order to meet the point that the local authorities should receive some apportionment of the parental moneys, I have introduced this new section. Paragraph (d) of it gives the Minister this power:
Every sum received under this section shall be apportioned between the Minister for Education and the local authority responsible under this Act for the maintenance of the offender or child in such proportion as the said Minister, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, directs."
It would be quite impossible to set out in the Bill what proportion of these moneys, if any proportion, is eventually going to be repaid to the local authorities. It is a matter in which the Department of Finance is interested. Negotiations, which may occupy some time, will have to take place regarding the matter. All that I can do at the moment is to take power to make the apportionment with the consent of the Minister for Finance.
Under the Bill, is not all that money payable into the Exchequer?
It is, but we are taking power now to make an apportionment of it.
Yes, if we can get the Minister for Finance to agree.
To give it to the local authorities?
For fear it might be thought that the Minister was proposing to act in an unduly beneficent way, it is perhaps as well to mention that the whole sum is about £2,000.
Amendment agreed to.
Sections 20, 21 and 22 agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported with amendments.
Report Stage ordered for Wednesday, the 19th February, 1941.
