Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 15 Nov 1973

Vol. 76 No. 2

Report on Reformatory and Industrial Schools Systems, 1970: Motion.

Mrs. Robinson

I move:

That Seanad Éireann takes note of the Report on Reformatory and Industrial Schools Systems, 1970.

It gives me pleasure to be given the opportunity to move this motion that the Seanad consider the Kennedy Report of 1970 on Industrial and Reformatory Schools. Before entering into the substance of it, I should like to apologise to the House if my absence at 10.30 a.m. caused any inconvenience, either to the House or to the Parliamentary Secretary. I was under the impression, when the business was ordered yesterday, that we would take the Courts Bill first this morning and that I would have those extra few minutes.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I should say I was afraid of that misunderstanding. It was mentioned on the Order of Business yesterday about the Courts Bill. I am sorry.

Mrs. Robinson

Secondly, I should like to take this opportunity of commending the Leader of the House, Senator O'Higgins, for the efforts he has made—I am aware of these efforts behind the scenes—to have motions taken by the Seanad.

Dr. West

Hear, hear.

Mrs. Robinson

This will give us an opportunity in this House of performing the important role of looking at the serious and solid reports which have been submitted from time to time on important areas of public concern. We ought to meet this challenge and carve out our relevance as the Upper Chamber, where there is more time for debates of this kind. I thank Senator O'Higgins for the efforts he has made and I hope that this will continue to be the climate in which we will debate a number of important motions throughout the year.

Turning to the report itself, one of the first things to remark is that it is a report submitted in 1970. This is the first opportunity that has arisen in either House of the Oireachtas to debate it and that will speak for itself. Secondly, it is a report on reformatory and industrial schools systems, but the weakness in the terms of reference of the report—and these terms of reference were: to survey the reformatory and industrial schools systems and to make a report and recommendation to the Minister for Education—is that they were too narrow. They resulted in this committee looking at the places to which children could be sent after a procedure, without examining that procedure or without examining the Children's Court, which would send these children to the institutions in question. This is a very significant weakness, which probably stems from the overall framework within which we deal with children under our law.

Today in the House, appropriately, we have the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, who has been given a special brief in relation to children as far as education is concerned. I would wish that we could have the facility to trap the Minister for Justice and retain him here because a great deal of what will be said concerns him. There is also the jurisdiction of the Attorney General in this field, as well as that of the Ministers for Health and Social Welfare. If we are to achieve real change and reform in our law relating to children there must be co-ordination at Cabinet level, and equally important, at Departmental level on the whole area of the law relating to children.

This brings me to the first purpose which the Seanad can serve in considering motions of this kind. We can ask relevant questions about the degree of co-ordination which has been achieved until now. Would the Parliamentary Secretary in his reply to this debate give an indication of what co-ordination there has been? Has there been a decision as to which Department will have primary responsibility in relation to children, given the many ways in which they are at present dealt with at different levels by different Departments? What priority is being given to this matter, if there has been the initial co-ordinating attempt? What will be the framework under which a reform in children's law will come about? It is not necessary to emphasise too much the need for reform, the arguments for it are so strong. The basic law relating to children in this country is still the Children's Act, 1908. This is a British statute which preceded the Free State, and has been abolished as totally anachronistic and inadequate by the British systems.

In England, Scotland and Northern Ireland they would no longer consider the Children's Act, 1908, our basic charter of children's rights, to be adequate or to respond to modern thinking. This must be the primary departing point, that is, that one does not have to stress the urgency of the need for reform. One must ask the second question: to what extent has this been examined as a matter of priority on which agreement must be reached, both as to which Department will have primary co-ordinating responsibility and as to what interdepartmental liaison can be achieved to institute necessary reforms?

One of the first points which must be made is that the age of criminal responsibility is absurdly low, in that a child of seven is considered to be responsible before the criminal courts. He can be convicted of a crime and can be found "guilty" of a criminal offence. In modern world terms we are barbaric in allowing this finding to be made by our criminal procedure in relation to so young a child. To simply raise the age to ten, 12, 14—or whatever age may be thought appropriate— is not at all to solve the problem involved. If one raises the age of criminal responsibility, one must provide the care and facilities to meet the problem of children who are in need of care either above or below that age limit. What we must do, as other jurisdictions are doing, is to change the emphasis from one of criminality and criminal proceedings to one of care, and to introduce proper comprehensive treatment in order to help children who are in trouble for one reason or another.

One must be very critical of our present procedure for coping with children given this very low age of liability. This procedure includes the Children's Court as it operates at present—that is the Metropolitan Children's Court in Dublin. There was the possibility for devolution in the sense of setting up children's courts under the Courts of Justice Act, 1924, in Limerick, Cork and Waterford, but this has not been implemented. I will confine my remarks to the Children's Court in Dublin.

In looking for some statistics about the number of children appearing before this court, I am greatly assisted by the reply to a question asked by the now Parliamentary Secretary who will reply to this debate, in June, 1971 when he asked a specific question of the then Minister for Justice, Deputy O'Malley—and I should like to put that reply on the record of this House —of the number of children appearing before the courts up to 1971. I quote from the reply of Deputy O'Malley at that time in the Official Report of the Dáil, 17th June, 1971, where he says:

Statistics are compiled in relation to the number of cases that are heard by the court rather than the numbers of persons who appear before it. During the last four calendar years the numbers of cases heard by the court were as follows: 1967, 9,832; 1968, 12,287; 1969, 13,654; 1970, 16,586.

I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will bring this list up to 1973 in order that we may have an awareness that the graph is still rising? It is phenomenal that one lady District Justice processes that number of cases each year in the Children's Court. Some of these cases would have been deferred and be considered for a second or third time involving the one child. Nevertheless, the volume of cases to be processed is astonishing. One can very well ask what possible in-depth consideration there could be of the children involved. The quotation goes on to give details of legal aid applications in those cases and they, too, are relevant:

The following are details of applications for free legal aid dealt with by the court in each of the last four calendar years and in the first five months of this year:

Year	Applications	Granted
1967	14	1
1968	18	4
1969	6	2
1970	9	1
1971	40	13
(up to 31 May)

In fairness, following the disclosure of these statistics and the attention which was brought to the question, there are now a much larger number of legal aid applications in the Children's Court. Nevertheless, the very real problem of a high case load exists and of a court procedure dealing with criminality. Despite the intention to have an informal procedure, the children and the parents are often intimidated by the court ambience itself.

What we must do is substitute a more appropriate method of coping with these children. I would suggest that we adopt a model similar to that of another jurisdiction, which is available in Scotland under the Social Work (Scotland) Act, 1968. Under that Act children who have committed offences or who are otherwise in need of care are, in almost all circumstances, brought before a lay panel rather than before a court of law. The hearing before the lay panel is not concerned with determining the facts, because these must be either admitted by the child or one of its parents or else be established if necessary before a court.

However, the most appropriate measures of treatment for each particular child come up for consideration by a panel. This meets one of the basic criticisms of the Children's Court which operates here at the moment. The criticism is that we are allowing a court of law to be concerned both with the establishment of guilt or innocence and also to be a specialised agency for treatment of children by determining where they will be sent. These are incompatible functions. As well as being incompatible in that sense, it is also a weakness to have a single district justice processing this number of cases. I am not making this a personal criticism of the individual district justice involved, but I am talking in an abstract way about the structure itself. It is to be contrasted with the panel system under the Act in Scotland which I have referred to. Also in England the juvenile courts consist of two or three magistrates. There must be a man and woman on all juvenile courts, which is important and regarded as providing a necessary balance of the sexes in the procedure of considering the treatment for each child.

Another aspect of this question is the condition of the actual industrial and reformatory schools. We had a debate on the Adjournment recently in the Seanad on a motion which I tabled in relation to juvenile remand homes. The debate took place on 1st June, 1973, beginning at column 60 of the Official Report. At that stage I had referred to the fact that there was no institution in the State, after the closing of Marlborough House following a recommendation of the Kennedy Report, to which to send boys under the age of 16 who were not accepted in St. Laurence's in Finglas. This arose out of a specific court case where the solicitor involved described it as a scandalous situation. A boy under the age of 16 was detained for 48 hours in the Bridewell. The Bridewell is regarded as a prison. The Minister for Justice, in replying to what I had said, seemed to agree that it had been improper that a boy under the age of 16 should have been detained in the Bridewell. Anybody with knowledge of the Bridewell will know that because of the total absence of facilities it is worse than any adult prison. Yet it seemed to be the only place where this boy could be kept. In replying to the point I had raised on that occasion Deputy Cooney said, at column 67 of the Official Report:

It was hoped that when Marlborough House closed down that the people conducting St. Laurence's in Finglas would make provision to keep boys of this particular type, but that expectation was not realised. At the moment discussions are going on between my Department and the Department of Education to try to overcome this very serious difficulty. I share the Senator's concern in this regard. She has my assurance that anything I can do to have this matter rectified, I shall do.

I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary how have those negotiations gone on with the Department where he now has special jurisdiction? Is he in a position to tell us that the matter has been processed along the way and that there is now adequate provision for boys under 16 years of age in these circumstances? The Minister for Justice then went on to say that the situation was slightly better in relation to girls.

The problem, of course, is not to repeat the Marlborough House mistake and create institutions of that sort. The movement must be towards proper care centres, with adequate professional advice and services from paid psychologists and social workers who can help these children who are in need of care. The homework has been well done by the organisation called CARE in the excellent memorandum which they produced. This organisation has done a great amount of work on the problem of children in Ireland and must receive recognition for what it has done. CARE has been mentioned in the last budget speech by the Minister for Finance and has been assisted by public moneys. This is not enough. They are a voluntary body. The responsibility must be at Government level and anything else that is done can only be supplementary to that.

I will leave it to my colleague and supporter of this motion, Senator West, to discuss the special problems in relation to St. Patrick's which we visited together. I think that here again there is a need for radical thinking about the treatment of young offenders and about the way in which we risk creating hardened criminals. We create resenters of our society by the treatment which they can encounter in St. Patrick's. Senator West will also mention the attempts at reform and the innovations which have been made and ask some specific questions on that.

I should like to refer to one other body and to ask for elaboration on its role. Again, I may be asking the wrong Parliamentary Secretary or the wrong Department, which must arise when one tries to talk coherently about children because there are so many Departments concerned. I would be interested if the Parliamentary Secretary could give specific information on the role which the Committee on Court Practice and Procedure plays in this area. Their terms of reference, I understand, have been broadened to include matters of family law. Will they be examining the position? Will they be one of the agencies which will provide expertise in this matter? I would submit that the composition of the Committee on Court Practice and Procedure is much too narrow to fulfil this function adequately. It is not enough to use an existing good committee, which—to their credit—bring in regular reports, to move into a new area like family law, unless one radically alters the composition of the Committee on Court Practice and Procedure and allows them to do an appropriate job at this level.

When there was discussion about building a new courts building, there was mention of the inclusion of plans for a Children's Court or a number of Children's Courts in that. I should like to know if there is any further specific thinking on this question. I do not, as must be obvious from the general remarks I have been making, advocate the creation of two or three more Children's Courts like the present Children's Court of which I am very critical. I do want to know whether the Department are considering the possibility of a panel or tribunal system that operates in other jurisdictions and if, in this thinking they have planned out the appropriate facilities which would be available in any new courts building which would be erected and what governmental thinking may be on that.

The usefulness of introducing a motion and putting it before the Seanad in this way is to try to have on the record specific questions and, hopefully, specific answers to those questions. I would be grateful if the Parliamentary Secretary would give the fullest possible information, not just to the Senators here present, but on the record. I can tell him, from my own personal concern about the law relating to children, from my knowledge of organisations such as CARE who are doing work in this field, that there is a very real sense of confusion and frustration. This is shared by those who teach family law as a subject to law students. Statements are made by so many people now in relation to reform of the law that it is impossible to get a rational idea of the framework within which this is being done, of the stage which it has reached and of who is assuming a primary co-ordinating responsibility and role in the matter. If he can use this opportunity in speaking to this motion before the House to clarify some of these points that will be a vast improvement in removing the present bewilderment and confusion.

Dr. West

I have great pleasure in seconding this motion. As Senator Robinson has dealt with the legal aspects of this problem very thoroughly and very competently, perhaps I should stress some of the other aspects, particularly the problems faced by the institutions which are under the control of the Minister for Education or the Minister for Justice and which deal with children who are young offenders or have tendencies in this direction. As Senator Robinson has said, one of the great problems is that this is really a cross-Departmental problem.

I had hoped that we might be dealing with the Minister for Education and that we would have been able, because of his recent call to the Bar, to pin him down on some of the legal matters. There is a real problem here. One of the major recommendations of the Kennedy Report—which I might add was published in 1970—is that a single Department should be set up to deal with all child care problems. This would cross lines with the present jurisdictions of the Departments of Justice, Health and Education. It is very frustrating for a Senator or a Deputy when he decides to make representations or to try for improvements in an area of this nature that he must spend most of his time shuffling back and forward from one Department to another. Administratively, the single most important thing that could be done would be to set up one unit which would deal with all the problems of children in care and young offenders.

It is nice to be able to record that there has been a definite change in public opinion on this whole question. The old idea that, if children got into trouble, were taken to the courts and ended up in a reformatory—it was good enough for them—has changed. This has been achieved by considerable work by organisations such as CARE. Perhaps this debate can also help in this direction. When the reforms which are needed are proposed and considered, the "brass tacks" of the situation is the amount of money the Department of Education or the Department of Justice can get from the annual budget to put these reforms into motion. It is clear that if we, in our efforts, can help the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education or the Minister for Justice by making the public more aware of the problems, and thereby increasing public demand for reform in these areas, we will be doing a worthwhile job. That is an important point to stress. I am very pleased with the growing awareness of our social obligations to the young. This will surely encourage the granting of increased moneys when the budget comes up.

Many of the problems faced in this report may not be solved, but a start could be made on them, at local level, provided suitable encouragement is forthcoming from the Department. In the parish structure in this country we have a very powerful social instrument. This is the natural local division and a great deal can be done for people in trouble and, particularly for children in trouble, at parish and at local level. I should like to give the example of my home area of Midleton. There is a very marked increase there in social awareness. Many committees have been formed and are working with good effect on social problems. I should like to see the Department actively encouraging local involvement and actively encouraging local volunteers to visit the homes of children who have family problems or who have been on remand or at special schools. I should also like to see something being done in the prevention area. This can best be done locally also. It is the local people who will know about those in danger of getting into trouble. If efforts be encouraged at parish level to get the community involved and to make the community realise their obligations to the young before the young people actually end up in court, this could save a great deal of trouble for the courts and of course for the children themselves.

I would encourage this local effort very strongly. It is one of the themes that runs through the Kennedy Report and it is one of the themes that Senator Robinson and I met with regularly when we visited institutions or talked to people who were responsible or involved in any way in child care. Things should be done on a local level. After-care service and prevention services should be operated locally. Let us have local effort. Let us have encouragement from the centre, but let us base the effort locally. This is undoubtedly the way to approach the problems of prevention and after-care.

A second theme which runs through the Kennedy Report is the archaic nature of the institutions in which the children are housed. The whole problem of institutionality and the need for change is very apparent. The emphasis is away from the grey, massive, Victorian institutions, which resemble prisons, whatever the staffing or however good the people who are looking after the children really are. The Kennedy Report recommends changes in the names. It says that reformatories and industrial schools should have their names changed to something more suitable, and that the older and the more dreadful of these institutions should be closed down. Since Senator Robinson and I started on this work we visited Marlborough House on our tour. It really was a dreadful place. One felt sympathy for both staff and children. That has now been closed and the Kennedy Report recommends that St. Conleth's in Daingean should also be closed. I am not clear on the position with regard to that institution. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary could enlighten me when he is replying. St. Patrick's which is a wing of Mountjoy, is inevitably institutional. One is aware of the prison atmosphere. One wonders if this is the proper place for the rehabilitation of young offenders. A stark statistic shows that St. Patrick's had a 90 per cent re-admission rate last year when we visited it.

Another theme running through the Kennedy Report is the lack of qualified staff. Moves have been made to improve this. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to state what has been done and what is planned for the provision of trained staff to deal with the children who are in care. A good deal can be done on a local basis, but it is clear there must be a nucleus of properly trained and qualified staff to deal with the children who come under the jurisdiction of the Department of Education or the Department of Justice in this way.

It is not sufficient to send prison warders for six-week courses. We must have proper training facilities for staff, and courses of one to two years will be necessary for basic training. There must be other qualified medically and socially-trained personnel to provide the basic staff for these institutions.

What is the function of the visiting committees in regard to institutions in which children are on remand or who have been sentenced and placed? Do they ever visit these institutions? If so, do they have an opportunity to talk to the children involved without having the staff looking over their shoulders? The committees should be able to get the impressions of the children freely and frankly.

Members of the Oireachtas who are not necessarily on visiting committees should be encouraged to visit these institutions. Our attitude to this problem is changing. Some very important improvements have been made by the Departments involved. Members of the Oireachtas have ultimately to decide on moneys voted for such reforms. They should be actively encouraged to visit places like St. Patrick's Institution, where they will get some shocks, and Shanganagh Castle, where they will be very impressed by the whole attitude and the whole idea of an open institution where there is a genuine freedom. An effort should be made to strengthen visiting committees and to ensure that they carry out their function.

I should also like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary about the position vis-a-vis inspectors of industrial schools. Legally, it is encumbent on the Department to ensure that these schools are inspected at least once a year. When the report was written there was only one inspector for industrial schools. The location of the schools and the problems each one faced made it virtually impossible for that one inspector to carry out his duties in any reasonable manner. I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary what is the position regarding the inspection of these institutions by the Department.

One year ago Senator Robinson and I visited St. Patrick's Institution. At that time there were 200 inmates, 50 per cent of whom were over the age of 18 years. One of the depressing things about St. Patrick's is that the children have to spend 14 hours per day in their cells. Although there are very modern excellent cooking facilities they have to go down to the kitchens and bring their meals back to the cells as there is no proper communal dining hall.

The Vocational Educational Committee were providing instruction in carpentry, motor repairs and building construction. We were told that shortly the VEC were to provide instruction in welding, metalwork and carpentry. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to state if that has been done. We were given to understand that this was about to happen.

Two visitors were allowed per inmate per month and the inmates were allowed two letters per month. It was made clear that some of the children there would have no visitors from one month to the next. But for those who would have had visits from their family we should encourage more visits. We should encourage more letters to be written and received by the inmates. Contact, with the family should be encouraged. For those who have no families or whose families take no interest in them, volunteers are available. These volunteers must be given the "go-ahead" by the Department and should be encouraged to visit the children. This is happening in a small way, but surely volunteers should be allowed to visit more often. There is a problem of screening those who visit. There are many people who would like to help in this way and who feel an obligation in this respect.

One of the better features of St. Patrick's Institution was the erection of a block of prefabricated classrooms which was in full operation when we visited. It was clearly explained to us that the intention for St. Patrick's was that the numbers be reduced from 200 to 50 and that educational facilities were only available for 50. The position then allowed the children in St. Patrick's to get 15 hours' tuition per fortnight. Some are educationally very backward. There is a good deal of illiteracy. There is very little numeracy and so the teaching which was taking place was pretty basic. The teachers were dedicated and were qualified. It was encouraging to see these new, modern classrooms and compare them with the drab grey, stone cell backgrounds. We were told by the Department of Justice officials who were there that the plans were to reduce the numbers to 50. Can the Parliamentary Secretary state what is the position now?

The idea was that the children who were better behaved than the others would be sent to open institutions such as Shanganagh and only the more serious offenders were to be retained in St. Patrick's, but that when the numbers were reduced to 50 the educational facilities would be suitable. We also visited St. Laurence's Preventive Centre which was opened in January, 1972. It was very encouraging to see a fine, new, modern building with a swimming pool, good indoor facilities and also a highly qualified staff to do medical, social and psychological assessments of the children.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I should like to draw the attention of the Senator to the fact that his time is up.

Dr. West

Perhaps with the permission of the Leas-Chathaoirleach, I could just continue speaking for a few more minutes.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I will just allow the Senator to wind up his speech on this motion.

Dr. West

As Senator Robinson has said, a problem exists because there is not enough room for children who are on remand. Marlborough House is not there. St. Laurence's will not necessarily take them. This was the situation a year ago. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary can bring us up-to-date on the present position. There is no question that St. Laurence's is a step in the right direction. A whole change in attitude in the treatment of these children and an emphasis on assessment is important. It should help to cut down the 90 per cent re-admission rate to St. Patrick's. The opening of Shanganagh Castle is also a step in the right direction. There, perhaps, my comment is that there is too much freedom and not enough work for the children.

I should like to conclude by asking the Parliamentary Secretary what has been done to implement some of the recommendations on aftercare. What about hostels for the children who are discharged? What about foster homes and the problems of adoption? What about this whole business of breaking down the institutions into small residential units, which are foster homes, rather than these larger institutional buildings? There are many other parts of the report which would be worth touching on. Perhaps they will be dealt with by other speakers. There are obviously many questions which the Parliamentary Secretary should answer. We hope that this debate will generate constructive criticism and will encourage the further necessary reforms in this whole area.

Mr. Brosnahan

I should like to support the points made by Senators Robinson and West on this motion. I should like to congratulate them on bringing this very important topic before the Seanad. I am glad also that the Department of Education are represented here today. Above and beyond the corrective measures that might be taken jointly by the Departments of Justice and Education, fundamentally the whole question of juvenile delinquency is a matter for the social worker and the teacher. Corrective methods in the matter of delinquency come at too late a stage. Enlightened approaches towards corrective methods are very welcome and they have been highlighted by the two Senators who have already spoken. We have got to get back to the basic situation that many children who are caught up in the delinquency situation are victims of their environment, their social situation and, to a lesser extent, the school situation.

Rudolph Allers in his book The Psychology of Character, which is a standard work in all Departments of Education, in universities and teachers' colleges of education, says that those in charge of children up to the age of six years bear the heaviest responsibility towards their later characterological disposition. In other words, children before they even arrive at school have the basis of their character well and truly formed in their home environment. School can have a corrective influence on such children but one has got to go back to the basic situation. One has got to encourage the school situation in this correction of the maladjustment which takes place in the local environment. Maladjustment is a social problem. It is also an educational problem. It must be solved jointly by the social worker and the teacher.

Children from certain disadvantaged environments fall into the error of delinquency. Let us examine the position of a child in certain areas in this city and, I am sure, in other urban areas throughout the country. The railing is his hedgerow; the path is his mountain or nature trail; the lamppost is his tree; and the concrete road is his green field. That is the environment in which people grow up in certain parts of this and other cities. These children have little refreshment from their environment. They live in grim situations in a drab dreary environment which gives no relief whatsoever from the situation in which they have grown up.

It is futile talking about the corrective situation at a later stage when the money should be spent on the environment in which these children are brought up and in the school situation in which these children are educated. It is better to spend the money early rather than spend it at a later stage in the matter of correction. Correction involves detection, court proceedings and the upkeep of elaborate establishments in order to correct the children who should have been corrected at an early stage.

Many children live in what we describe as educational priority areas although they have not as yet been designated as such. I have, however, made representations personally to the Minister for Education in this regard. Certain areas should get special priority in education in order to offset the enviroment in which the children are reared. Schools in these areas should have preferential staffing ratios. Classes should be reduced in size so that more individual attention can be given to these children, rather than have drab, dreary school buildings which exist in these areas because people have turned a blind eye to these areas. There should be schools of avant-garde design and decor to offset the grimness of the whole situation. There should be an emphasis on physical education to offset the lack of playing facilities which exist in these areas. There should also be a stream-lined curriculum, with the emphasis on basic education, rather than have the full-scale curriculum, for such children. One might envisage a swimming-pool attached to these schools to give further emphasis to physical training in order to offset the lack of opportunity for physical development of children in underprivileged areas.

I offer those few remarks to help the Department of Education and those engaged in social work, those who are looking into the problem of delinquency. It is one thing to deal with delinquency when it has taken place. I agree that steps should be taken to improve the situation in which people who are charged with delinquency and convicted of delinquency find themselves. However, we should get back to the basic situation of environment and education.

Mr. Horgan

Anybody might think on reading the morning newspapers today that the small matter we were discussing in this House yesterday afternoon, the Private Members' Bill in the names of Senators Robinson. West and I, was the most important social issue facing the country. We all know that while it is very important it is not the most important social issue facing this country. That is why I am particularly glad that this motion is before us this morning. I should like to support this motion and to commend Senators Robinson and West for an exemplification of a very wide social concern that cannot be tied down to matters of detail.

There is a crying need at the moment for the kind of codification, improvement and updating of family law that unfortunately is only barely hinted at in this report. When we consider that one of the main Acts under which children are sent to reformatories and industrial schools is a Children's Act which was passed almost 70 years ago, we should hang our heads in shame as a country and as a parliament—that we have not taken seriously enough the whole range of problems involved, a range of problems which produces the people who are the raw material of this report.

When reading this report I was particularly struck by Tables 27, 28, and 29 and the appendices dealing with the background information about the children concerned. On looking at these tables one gets an amazing and saddening picture of the type of child who is likely to find himself in such an institution. He is overwhelmingly likely to be the product of a broken home. He is overwhelmingly likely, perhaps, even to be illegitimate. He may not even know if his parents were ever married or if they are alive. This impression is heightened when one looks at Tables 31 and 32 in the report which relate to father's and mother's occupations.

On looking at Table 31, one will notice the infinitesimal proportion of children in industrial schools and reformatories who come from families where the father or mother is in one of the higher income groups. The lower the income group, the higher the number of children in these industrial schools. This is true of the mothers as well as of the fathers.

The problem we are trying to cope with here is a school system, or a reformatory and industrial school system, which is in effect confined almost exclusively to the children from the lower socio-economic groups in our society. We must face the implications of this. Is the fact that so many of these children come from the lower socio-economic groups an indication that children from this group are much more likely to be wicked than the children of professional people? There may be some people who believe this and I have no time for them. If we accept that this is necessarily the case and that those children find themselves in those schools for a whole complex series of reasons over which they, individually, have very little control, we will be in a better position to understand the situation.

I agree wholeheartedly with what Senator Brosnahan said about educational priority areas, now apparently a priority of the present Government, and of the need to create, in so far as it can be created, a fine environment for children at school in those areas. I think it was Senator Brosnahan who told me on one occasion that it is not so very long ago since the same architects were employed by the Board of Works to build both prisons and schools. I hasten to add that I do not think it was under any administration of recent times. There are many schools in this city and in other urban areas, built perhaps around the turn of the century or slightly earlier, which from the outside have all the appearances of prisons and I suspect on the inside as well. Some of them have windows from which small children could look out.

We must realise that the whole spectrum of deprivation which puts those children at risk from the moment they are born, and perhaps even before that, is something that cannot be solved by a piecemeal approach. This is why I am calling as a matter of urgency for the Government to take the whole question of family legislation seriously and to codify and update the existing laws.

I should like to refer to another matter. We cannot assume, without being inhuman to an incredible degree, that those children are there just because they are bad. We must accept that they are locked into a vicious cycle of deprivation and delinquency and we have got to accept that we, in very many ways, unwittingly have contributed to the perpetuation of this cycle.

Senator Brosnahan referred to research about the importance of people who have care of very young children. I am sure he too is aware of research which shows, very particularly in the case of teachers, that children tend to perform in school in terms of their teachers' expectations of them. In other words, the child who is well dressed, well spoken and clean will achieve more at school than a child of similar innate ability but who is not so well dressed, tends to be late for school, is not perhaps very clean and who has an accent which marks him off as the product of one particular street rather than another. This is part of the cycle which I have been describing. Teachers—it is human nature and one cannot blame them—tend to respond to characteristics in children of which they approve. They tend very often, quite unconsciously, to discriminate against children whose abilities may be no less and whose need may be greater than the favourite ones in class. This is part of the contribution to the vicious circle which I have mentioned.

There is another element, and that is the sentencing policy in our courts. I should like to call your attention, first of all to a matter of fact—the statement on page 75 of the report about the rather extraordinary way in which our present policy and system operate. Paragraph 10.19 of the report reads:

One anomaly which exists in the present system is that three youthful offenders may receive three different sentences for the one offence, the least guilty receiving the longest sentence. For example, a 12 year old, a 14 year old and a 16 year old may commit an offence which will lead to the 12 year old being committed to Letterfrack, Galway, for three years, the 14 year to St. Conleth's, Daingean, for two years and the 16 year old to St. Patrick's, Dublin, for one year.

This state of affairs gives a hint that the practice of sentencing is open to careful and sensitive review. What I have said about teachers applies pari passu to judges. One does not have to be very well read to be kept in touch with case after case in the courts where the well-spoken, well-dressed, clean child with an expensive solicitor and anxious parents, both in court, will get a lighter sentence than the working-class child whose parents may not even know that he will be in court that day.

When we consider that 80 per cent of the children in the industrial and reformatory schools, according to the report, are there because they have been committed by the courts, we will realise that the whole question of sentencing needs to be looked at very closely. I would strongly suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that research funds be made available by the Department of Education for an authoritative study, perhaps by a university group, on the practice and consistency of sentencing in our Children's Courts. One such study was carried out in respect of a totally different matter in Northern Ireland recently by people who studied the differences between the sentencing of Catholics and Protestants in the Northern Ireland courts. This is the kind of research which tells us more about our society and its assumptions than any generalisation can do. I would strongly recommend it to the Parliamentary Secretary's attention.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education (Mr. Bruton)

Would the Senator give the reference for the passage he cited?

Mr. Horgan

It is paragraph 10.19 on page 75 of the report.

Mr. Bruton

The Senator referred to research.

Mr. Horgan

The research to which I referred in Northern Ireland is reported in a recent booklet. One of the authors is Mr. Tom Haddon, a lecturer in law at Queen's University, Belfast, who with one of his colleagues has carried out an extensive survey of sentences for crime related to the religious background of the persons committing the crimes.

Mr. Bruton

Are they senior offenders or juniors?

Mr. Horgan

They are senior offenders. I gave this example as an illustration of the kind of research which can be undertaken if people take the matter seriously and if a certain amount of money is allotted for an independent inquiry.

Dr. West

As a point of information, the other author of that report is Patrick Hilliard.

Mr. Horgan

I have a few minor points to make in conclusion. I was astonished to find out in the report that when the report was written there were the best part of 1,000 children in voluntary homes which had not sought approval from the Department of Health. Is this situation good enough? It is not necessarily the Parliamentary Secretary's responsibility but I should like him to bring it to the notice of the appropriate authorities. I do not consider the situation adequate. I feel we should not be perpetuating the kind of system over which there is very little public control and which may in its worst manifestations be quite Dickensian.

The second point I want to make is in connection with the educational facilities in those schools. There is one particular aspect on which I criticise the report and that is that it does not tell us enough about the educational facilities in those schools. There are tables on pages 99 and 100 which tell us enough to make us worry. In Table 20 there is reference to the facilities for educationally backward and mentally handicapped children. Fourteen schools were lucky in that there were special schools available locally for the children who had this problem but ten, almost as many, had no special training available locally and coped, I quote, "as best it can with this problem." A number of other schools did not reply to the question. Very few had a special remedial teacher or a special class. This is not good enough.

Table 21 gives in a particularly stark fashion an outline of the vocational guidance facilities available to those schools. Of 32 schools who replied to this question, 31 had no formal arrangements for vocational guidance. This is a major shortcoming. Vocational guidance, and guidance generally, is now built into every school, or should be. Will we make the most deprived of our children even more deprived by refusing to make available to them sensible formal arrangements for vocational guidance? I accept that the situation may have improved since 1969 but I would stress the necessity to make vocational guidance in schools like these an absolutely major priority.

In conclusion, I should like to endorse what Senator West has said about the need to de-institutionalise institutions to the maximum possible extent. There is no institution, however well and lovingly run, which can really be the same as a home. In so far as there have to be institutions, let them make them as much like homes as possible.

Mr. Harte

As one who was reared in a tenement environment, I am more than pleased to see this motion being debated. Due to pressure of work, unfortunately I did not get an opportunity to go right through this report. However, I can speak to a great extent with an informed opinion of the events I have seen that have led people into reformatory schools and what happened to them in there and how they did or did not develop afterwards.

What confuses me most of all is that there is no means provided whereby children on indictable offences can be put into a place which is appropriate to their own particular background. Consequently, we finish up with the position where children who were begging or receiving alms or singing or performing in the streets—children who come from broken homes, whose parents, one or other, are in jail for some particular reason—are put into reformatory or industrial schools. There is lack of proper guardianship.

I should like to draw a distinction here. In one case there may be a potential criminal, because the law says that at seven years of age the child can be called a criminal if he is caught for an indictable offence. On the other hand, there are the children who are either first offenders or who, having committed a first offence, because no proper help is available at the time, end up in one of those schools.

The report says our industrial school and reformatory systems do not conform to the demands of life in general. These institutions grew up in a haphazard way and are out of touch with the modern needs and requirements of people. The report also states:

The realisation of the duty to the less fortunate members of society is something that should be paid great heed to.

Looking back on my own experience of what happened to people living in tenement areas, and possibly other areas as well, this is a very important point. There is a duty on us in respect of the less fortunate people in the community. The people who steal, as well as the people who beg or sing in the streets are less fortunate and that is not of their own making. Whether this is the result of broken homes or otherwise, society must bear portion of the guilt.

I have also noticed that one-third of those who go into industrial or reformatory schools are deprived children. The other two-thirds are in there for indictable offences. Who has deprived them? Is it Governments or society in general? Have we vindicated, in accordance with the Constitution, the good name of the person? I question that. I say that the State is guilty. We have paid great attention to the area where most of the crimes are committed—for example, the protection of property. It seems to me that those children of the nation who require to have their property protected have been cherished a bit more equally than the others who have no property to protect.

I was very pleased to hear some of the points made by Senators Robinson, West and Horgan. On the question of the educational programmes which are needed, I could not agree with the Senators more. If the needs of people who have not got a good education are to be satisfied, there should be much more than a global look taken at it. There must be specific considerations. A specific examination should be made of the type of person in the particular type of school and we should develop from there to the general needs. If one goes into a school to examine the situation there is no point in having a global arrangement for all the boys there, because one boy may be a little bit behind another boy but he will not get the type of training and education that he requires. The training programmes in these schools should be tailored to the needs of individuals. I do not know how one would go about this. Some children come back again to the institutions probably because nobody has taken a look at individuals and the training programmes are not tailored to specific needs.

Admittedly, there is an after-care arrangement for them, but there is no use in having the wrong training given in the school and having the after-care arrangement geared more towards equipping the young offender for outside life when, in fact, he has not got the necessary training to bring with him to outside life. There is no use in sending him into an after-care situation which has been established on the assumption that young offenders have the same level of intelligence or have reached the same standard of education. The two areas of training and education, both inside the institution and in the after-care sphere, will have to be tailored to the needs of the individual. It will have to be supervised in a way that it will become a reality.

We are prepared to spend a great deal of money on many things and we are prepared to give an airing to matters such as Senator Robinson's Bill which was introduced here yesterday. We have, by democratic vote, made up our minds to give that Bill an airing. Like Senator Horgan, I believe this matter of young offenders to be of greater urgency. I do not want to prejudice anything that may be said on the following Stages of the Family Planning Bill, but I believe this Bill to be a much more important Bill with much more important matters to be dealt with. Consequently, I would urge, as far as practicable, that some of the recommendations in the various reports be brought into effect as quickly as possible. I would urge the Parliamentary Secretary to pay particular attention to those areas of need which can be remedied quickly. I understand that some areas of need will take some time to remedy.

Senator Robinson went into great detail regarding this matter. When I see a report such as this which has been the subject of very detailed and critical examination, I am always very pleased that someone has got around to doing something about it. I am satisfied that the report has been made, that we are now discussing it and that there are headings and recommendations on which the Parliamentary Secretary can start working.

I should like to lay particular emphasis on the question of educational training, particularly during the detention and in the after-care periods. Another point that occurs to me with regard to the after-care situation is that it is not sufficient to get statements of good intent from employers, trade unions or even from AnCO regarding placement of these people in jobs. It is all right in itself but if a person has not been trained and prepared for the field for which he shows the greatest aptitude while at school and if he is not directed to pursue that field quickly enough after he leaves school, there is a danger of lapse. I would urge that this matter be given immediate attention so as to avoid people having to go back into those centres.

The liaison scheme is also an area in which a great deal could be done quickly. The liaison scheme is geared for dealing with first offenders and potential offenders. The problem here very likely lies in the fact that there are not enough people operating in this field and perhaps there is also a problem with regard to the qualifications of the people who are acting in the liaison sphere. This may be the cause of some of the difficulty. However, I should like to assume that they are well equipped to undertake this work and I would rather put the blame on the insufficiency of numbers. Because of this insufficiency they are finding the task impossible and are experiencing great difficulty in realising the objectives for which they were set up. If an increase in the number of liaison officers is effected quickly we will have a natural development towards an increase in potential offenders rather than first offenders. Ultimately, the numbers being charged with indictable or other offences will drop.

I do not want to quote the Constitution because I believe we have flogged to death the idea of all the people being cherished equally. It sounds very well, but I do not believe that children who are in reformatory schools could ever lay claims to that ideal unless society takes a grip of itself by the scruff of the neck and pays attention to these areas of concern. Some day I hope to be able to stand up here and say to the Parliamentary Secretary: "I take back what I said about society. Society has now, in fact, vindicated the personal rights of the very underprivileged people."

I should like to refer now to the age of responsibility. It is time to say that if you raised the age of criminal responsibility that would not do away with the problem. I am not saying that people who are guilty of anti-social behaviour, even if the age is raised. should not be dealt with, but I believe there should be a way of dealing with them. The present way of bringing them into court is not suitable and it should be done away with. There are means by which they can be dealt with.

Some Senator touched on this area and I agree entirely with him that it is crazy to have a child of seven years of age in court appearing as a criminal. Even if that child is out on the streets begging for alms, singing or selling something without a licence, it is crazy to say that this child should be dealt with in the same way as a person who could be held responsible at a later age, say ten or 12 years This is also something that could be remedied in the short term. I do not wish to give the impression that nothing should happen to these children, but I do not think they should be dealt with in the way in which they are being dealt with at present. Let us deal with them in a more humane way and in a way that will help them rather than hinder them and throw them into an environment where they may be looked upon as criminals rather than people who are the victims of the society they live in.

Education for liaison officers is very important. It is not always possible to get qualified persons in this field. Courses should be prepared for existing liaison officers and their knowledge kept up to date on modern trends and developments by the educational authorities at the expense of the State.

There is also the question of placement after school for suitable further education. I am glad this has been brought out into the open and I thank the Senators who put down this motion.

Mr. McCartin

I do not intend to go back on the field which has been so ably covered by the proposer of the motion and Senators West, Horgan and Harte. I congratulate them for probing my conscience on a subject to which I had not given much thought. I was very shocked at some of the descriptions given, particularly of St. Patrick's Institution where a young person is confined to a cell for 14 hours per day. No time, effort or expense should be saved to correct this situation which is not fully realised by the majority of our citizens.

The only institution of which I have any knowledge is the new institution in Black Lion in County Cavan near my home. I meet people who work there and from their reports it seems to be very humane and up-to-date. I come from County Leitrim and have known a great many families and individuals over a wide area. I have never met a child who was confined to any of these institutions or ever guilty of the offences spoken of here today. The most delinquent children I have met were a small family of children from a broken home who were confined to an orphanage for a time and then boarded out.

I was reared in an area where we had at that time the lowest income of any part of Ireland, that is the small farmers in the mountainous area of County Leitrim. I attended a school which had no running water, no proper sanitary facilities and the playground was a sea of mud in the winter months. We had the bare necessities of life in food and clothing, which would not be accepted as such now, and we knew what hard work and want was. There is a lot of significance in this. Senator Brosnahan made the point very well when he talked about so much damage being done to a child at the age of six years. The home is the most important factor. While other Senators have covered the ground very well, I should like to state that true family values are the most important factors which exist.

In the society in which I was raised children were in close contact with their parents. No parent thought it their right to go out night after night to enjoy themselves and leave the children to their own devices. No mother worked. I am not advocating this as being good or bad, but it is significant to note that the mothers were at home with their children all the time.

Mr. Horgan

Every mother works.

Mr. McCartin

I agree. They did not work away from home. The children worked from an early age. This, too, is very important. While there is an entirely different situation in the cities, the most important place for striking at the root of this problem is in the home. I have seen children in Dublin out at night looking for pennies. I asked some of them where were their parents, to be told they were in the cinema and that the doors of their homes were locked. This is what happens when parents take on a family without realising their responsibilities or being prepared to make the sacrifices required.

In the society in which I was raised the vast majority of children emigrated and worked manually in the cities of England and America. To the best of my knowledge their children have never become delinquents and I have had contact with many of them, some of whom are my own relations. They brought with them the true family values: their children were important to them and they were prepared to make sacrifices on their behalf. We have a problem. There are children to whom damage has been done and they must be looked after. But to work towards a solution of this problem we must start at the beginning, and the parents who take on the responsibilities of parenthood must realise the weight of these responsibilities. It is important that parents devote the maximum time to their children, and do not delegate their responsibilities to other people.

The numbers attending the schools might be another factor. In my area all the children had a more or less even standard of living. There was not one half of the children in the school being made aware that there was a much more privileged community close to them. This could also be a factor.

In modern life there is too much craving after pleasure and a grading down of the importance of the discipline of work. Parents in our bigger cities see their leisure hours as their life and their work as something they are forced into doing and unfortunately cannot get away from. The children of such parents are not being taught discipline. They are being taught to seek as much pleasure and freedom as they can. They are not taught to share, help and communicate with other people. These are some of the important points in connection with this problem. I would be very interested to hear the Parliamentary Secretary's reply to the problem outlined by the Senators who spoke before me.

Mr. O'Toole

I wish to compliment Senator Robinson on having moved this motion. From what Senator McCartin has said, it is a good recommendation to get back to the land. The question has very wide implications. From my point of view as a teacher having dealt with children at primary school age for the past 17 years, I would concur with the people who said that these are the formative years and it is at this stage of life that a child is directed in one channel or another. The school can play a part.

As Senator Horgan has intimated, teachers are human and they may unconsciously be inclined to lean more towards the child who has come from the better class home. The vast majority of teachers try to get down to the lowest common denominator in the class and try to bring the child who is in need of it up to an acceptable standard rather than leave him there and continue on with the better off section. Teachers in general take a very keen interest in the child whom they regard as deprived or disadvantaged in any way. They look on this as a very special responsibility. The teacher in a school is in loco parentis and if a child is not being catered for to an acceptable degree in the home, then the onus is on the teacher to do his best. As we all know, the teacher is a very poor substitute for the parent. Unless the parents in the home provide the kind of interest, concern and care that they ought to the child will suffer regardless of the best efforts of any other outside agency such as teachers or anybody else.

Having listened to other speakers today my greatest concern is the fact that the system seemed to be geared towards punishment rather than prevention. All the Senators who have spoken on this motion suggest, and rightly so, that society can be held responsible for 99.9 per cent of the cases which find themselves ultimately in such places as reformatory schools or industrial schools. As Senator Harte said, society should take a grip of itself by the scruff of the neck and realise that, being responsible for the situation, it should try and remedy it. The remedy will not come forth by handing responsibility over to the courts, because a child who is regarded as a criminal and dragged before the courts will not be cured by punishment by that court.

Figures bear out the fact that in many cases the bringing of a child before the court and its punishment is only an incentive to that child to continue on this wayward trend and get into the wrong groove in life. By the time he is in his early teens in many cases the situation has become irretrievable as far as he is concerned and he will find himself in trouble for the rest of his life. Then you have a chain reaction. That child in later life gets married and possibly ends up with a family who are disadvantaged and deprived. Unless we change the emphasis from punishment to prevention and take a good hard look at the system under which we are operating at the moment I do not think a worthwhile solution will issue.

Speaking in very general terms education will solve the problem. Education of whom? Education of the parents? As has been pointed out, one is up against one great difficulty here. In many cases those children have no parents. They may have one parent and that one parent is so concerned with the necessities of life that he is not concerned with education. We must educate the public in general and awaken in them the concern they ought to have. The motion moved by Senator Robinson should go a long way towards awakening in the public an interest. I am sure the reply of the Parliamentary Secretary will add to the awakening of this concern because education is important right across the board, both within these institutions and outside of them. The most important aspect of all is education of the public in general. There should be an awakening of concern for the particular type of person for whom Senator Robinson put down this motion. Teachers, individuals, the Government and the Parliamentary Secretary can all do a little bit. But it is just a drop in the ocean unless we can get across to the general public the seriousness of the situation and unless we can point out to them that this is their responsibility. It is no use throwing it on the Departments of Education or Justice, individuals or institutions. We can complain about those things but the public must realise that it is their responsibility to see to it that these people come within the terms of the Constitution, that they be cherished equally and that the emphasis be changed from punishment to prevention.

Business suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Boland

Could we ask what was the reason for the delay in resuming? A number of us had been in our places for some time and I understand that the proceedings could not go ahead because there was no representative from the Opposition present. Is that correct?

An Cathaoirleach

The position was that a courtesy was shown to one of the groups in the House, a courtesy which in the past has always been shown to the group occupying that position.

Mr. Boland

As long as the record shows that we could not meet because the Fianna Fáil people would not come into the House.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education (Mr. Bruton)

I am pleased that this opportunity is available to hear the views of Senators on this very important subject: the Kennedy Report on reformatory and industrial schools.

A great deal has been done since the Kennedy Report was published but a great deal still remains to be done. The present Minister for Education greatly desires to increase the momentum of progress. It is proved by his request to me as his Parliamentary Secretary, to take special responsibility, subject to his general direction, for this area.

Before proceeding further, I should like to say that the Kennedy Report, which was commissioned by the Minister for Education, the late Donogh O'Malley, in 1967, had implications for other Departments as well as for the Department of Education. Indeed. Senators have dealt with subjects which do not come within the ambit of the report. However, the Department of Education were, and are, responsible for the main subject matter of the report: the reformatories and industrial schools. In line with the recommendations of the committee, these are now known respectively as special schools and residential homes. The special schools deal mainly with offenders. The residential homes are for boys and girls who simply have no homes of their own, for any number of a variety of reasons. It is very important to draw a clear distinction between these two types of home. Under section 55 of the Health Act, 1953, children can be committed to residential homes with the consent of their parents. If that consent is not forthcoming but the needs of the children are so great that they require residential care, they are committed by order of the court under the Children's Act, 1908.

In the case of special schools, on the other hand, most children come through the courts after having committed offences. Some, indeed, are committed to the special schools voluntarily as a preventive measure. The work of the committee, led by Miss Justice Eileen Kennedy, and indeed the subsequent campaign by CARE—the campaign for the care of deprived children—have done much to speed the course of change. However, to date there has been a certain amount of secretiveness in the approach of my Department and also of other Departments to this important subject. This was particularly marked during the tenure of office of the previous Government. It is most clearly exemplified by the fact that this is the first debate in either House of the Oireachtas on the Kennedy Report, or its subject matter, since it was published three years ago. However, my decision to agree to an early debate in the Seanad is reflective of my own, and of the Minister's, conviction that much good can come from an open discussion of the money problems in this field.

Society is tested by its attitude to children in care. These children have no political leverage of their own. They have no union or trade associations to speak for them. They are deprived in many cases of even the concern of their own parents. Their loss is not just a material loss. It is a loss of affection and of the spiritual and emotional support which family life alone can give. However children in care do not invoke the same spontaneous sympathy as those who are more obviously handicapped by physical or mental infirmity. In the case of delinquent children, their actions may provoke the very reverse of sympathy. Nonetheless, their needs are just as great. To those people who devote their lives to meeting those needs, all our thanks are due. I should stress that there seems to have been a misapprehension in this matter in the mind of some Senators. As far as the special schools for the offenders are concerned, the Department and the schools' policy is exclusively one of rehabilitation and compensatory education. The notion of sentence and punishment are and have been for some time irrelevant as far as those involved in this work were concerned.

Until very recently it was on these voluntary bodies, mostly religious, which the major burden still rested. It is only in the past five years that the private community began to take a larger hand with greater State financial contributions. Progress in that field has been dramatic. The capitation grant or grant per child paid to the residential homes has gone up by 300 per cent in the past five years, from £3 7s 6d in 1968 to £11 today. If Senators compare this with the increase in the index of weekly earnings in industry over the same period and with the increase in the cost of living, they will see at least the extent of the relative improvement. Many of the old blemishes have been removed.

In regard to special schools, Marlborough House has closed and Daingean Reformatory is closing this month. They have been replaced by the Department of Education by a modern assessment and remand centre at Finglas and by new modern, well-equipped schools at Finglas and Oberstown, County Dublin.

Dr. West

Is Oberstown open?

Mr. Bruton

The community have gone in to Oberstown, but the boys are in the process of going there.

The old institutional format of the residential homes has been changed. As a short-term measure, existing residential homes have been split up by internal reconstruction into small groups where boys and girls eat, sleep and recreate in separate family-type groups. A successful policy of encouraging children to go out to a variety of local schools and integrate into the local community rather than remain in an institutional setting for their education has been pursued. A substantial programme of building new, separate group homes is being embarked upon by the Department of Education. I opened the first such new home in Moate, County Westmeath, recently. The home at Drogheda and two houses at Cappoquin are in course of construction. Definite plans are in hand for group homes at Limerick, and for two homes at Killarney. The ultimate target is not yet fixed. It may be found in many cases that the adaptation of existing buildings or the purchase of existing dwelling-houses in private ownership can provide an equally homely atmosphere as a completely new group home.

In this context I should remark that very substantial adaptations to existing homes have been carried out so as to create within the original building completely new semi-detached houses. Alterations have been carried out in Mallow, where one home has been created; in Drogheda, three homes; Dundalk, three homes; Sundays Well, Cork, four homes; Waterford, four homes. Groupings of a less separate character have also been created in practically all the other homes by less fundamental reconstruction.

Private houses have been converted for the creation of one group home in Limerick, one at Booterstown, County Dublin, one in Killarney, two in Kilkenny, and two at High Park, Whitehall, Dublin. Further such purchases of private dwelling-houses for group homes for children are in the planning stage in Killarney.

I should explain that the idea behind this plan is that as far as possible the children should be broken down into family-type groups where they will develop a personal relationship with the housemother or father, which will be as near as possible to that in the atmosphere of a normal home. This policy has been pursued very vigorously and the alterations which I have indicated are in pursuit of that firmly agreed policy.

A one-year intensive training course in child-care for the staffs of the homes has been initiated in Kilkenny. To date 41 members of the care staff have graduated and 20 are at present in training. This training course applies not only to the care staffs in the residential homes but also to the care staffs in the special schools for offenders as well. All those involved in both types of institutions are now critically aware of the need for training.

Since the change of Government I am pleased to record that further in-service courses have been initiated— one in Goldenbridge in Dublin, and another in Waterford Regional Technical College. It is hoped that the initiation of more courses in the regional technical colleges and elsewhere should make it possible for all staffs in residential homes or special schools to get some basic training. This matter is being very fully examined.

The improved training has resulted in the various problems of individual children being adequately identified and coped with by the staffs. In regard to the Kilkenny course, there is an annual grant of £15,000 paid by my Department towards the running of the course. As a result of the budget introduced by Deputy Richie Ryan, a further £10,000 is being made available to defray the cost to the home of releasing staff to attend the course in Kilkenny. Having visited a large number of the homes in recent months, I can testify to the effect that this improved training has had in the overall régime of the homes and the outlook of those involved.

Action has also been taken to deal with the deeper problems which can contribute to the necessity for children coming into care in the first place.

The Tánaiste and Minister for Health has announced that an extra £500,000 will be allocated for the expansion of community welfare services. As a result, 40 additional posts as social worker in the health boards have been created since 1st March. Arrangements have been made in consultation with the Department of Education to double the number of post-graduate students in the Social Science Faculty in UCD. The Minister for Health has also asked the health boards to expand the home help service with special emphasis on families in stress situations—for example, to families in which there is illness or any other major domestic problem, or where there is a need for the mother to go out to work.

In urban complexes voluntary bodies are being specially encouraged to provide day nurseries or similar centres to help to avoid the necessity of having some children taken to care. Indeed, the whole object of these measures is to provide the support for families which will enable them to cope with their problems without the necessity of separating the children from their parents. The success of these measures, and also the measures taken by the previous Government, in favour of community care rather than residential care can be testified to by the fact that the number of children in residential homes has fallen from 2,147 in 1968 to 1,364 at the present time.

In regard to special schools, the corresponding drop in the number has been from 418 in 1968 to 244 at the moment. In passing, Senators should note, that, in terms of numbers, far more children are in the residential homes, where there is no question of their ever having committed an offence—they are there in care—than are in the special schools, which cater mainly for offenders.

Health boards are also pursuing a policy of fostering children out with other families where this is feasible rather than placing them in residential care. However, it is important to remember that there will always be some children with family or other personal problems that are so acute that residential care, for some time at least, is necessary. It is recognised also in the case of young offenders that community care can be more humane and more effective than residential care, even the best residential care.

For this reason the welfare service of the Department of Justice, which looks after all offenders in the community, is being very rapidly expanded. Last year there were 20 welfare officers, this year there are 46 and next year it is hoped to have 70 Department of Justice welfare officers. These officers are based in localities—in the case of Dublin they are based in the postal districts— where they deal with all offenders resident in those areas. These can in turn liaise with those welfare officers who are based in the special schools or in the prisons. The welfare officers work very closely with the assessment centres set up by my Department so as to ensure that after a boy has been apprehended a full social inquiry is carried out in relation to his home background by the welfare officer while, at the same time, an assessment is done on the boy himself regarding his personal problems and health. The result is that the district justice or judge is presented with detailed information on each boy referred for assessment to enable him to make an informed decision on the type of residential care or probation which should be given to the young offender.

In turn, the same full report is available to the management of the special school if the boy is sent there. Many of those who are assessed are not sent to special schools because the judge often, usually rightfully, decides that their problems can be coped with while leaving them in their own homes with special care and support through the welfare services of the Department of Justice—in other words, by leaving them on probation.

The same welfare service is also concerned with after-care for those who leave the special schools. The Seanad can see therefore that the rapid expansion of the Department of Justice welfare service is of considerable importance to the whole development of the child care service.

I should now like to turn to the actual recommendations of the report.

Recommendation 2.1 states:

The whole aim of the Child-Care system should be geared towards the prevention of family breakdown and the problems consequent on it. The committal or admission of children to Residential Care should be considered only when there is no satisfactory alternative.

This recommendation is fully accepted by the Government. The figures I gave earlier about the fall in the numbers in residential care are clearly indicative of this priority and the expansion in the welfare services which I referred to. They also indicate that we are prepared to provide the support services in the community to enable families to stay together.

Recommendation 2.2 states:

The present institutional system of Residential Care should be abolished and replaced by group homes which would approximate as closely as possible to the normal family unit. Children from the one family and children of different ages and sex should be placed in such group homes.

This recommendation is also accepted. Existing group homes have been divided and the Department are now also embarking on a more extended programme of new group homes.

Recommendation 2.3 states:

We find the present Reformatory system completely inadequate. St. Conleth's Reformatory, Daingean, should be closed at the earliest possible opportunity and replaced by modern Special Schools conducted by trained staff.

As I pointed out, St. Conleth's Reformatory, Daingean, is being closed and the replacement special schools are in existence. Likewise recommendation 2.4:

The Remand Home and Place of Detention at present at Marlborough House, Glasnevin, should be closed forthwith and replaced by a more suitable building with trained child-care staff.

has also been fulfilled.

Recommendation 2.5 is:

The staff engaged in Child-Care work who have responsibility for the care and training of children, their mental and emotional development, should be fully trained in the aspects of Child-Care in which they are working.

It should be clear to Senators that the initiation of the child-care course in Kilkenny is taking care of that recommendation.

Recommendation 2.6:

We recognise that education is one of the most important formative instruments on the children with whom we are concerned, whether they are deprived or delinquent. All children in Residential Care or otherwise in care, should be educated to the ultimate of their capacity. The purpose of the education they receive should be to help them to develop as adequate persons. To achieve this end, they will need facilities over and above those available to children reared in the normal family.

As regards residential homes, in the first place I should like to deal with this recommendation from the point of view of educational facilities. As I said earlier, the policy has been to integrate the children into local schools so that they can become as far as possible integrated into the local community and be indistinguishable from that community. It would hardly be compatible with this objective to give them special treatment within the local school in any obvious way. The educational advantages of so doing would be outweighed by the disadvantages to the natural relationship which the children from the residential homes should be enabled to build up with the other children of the neighbourhood who are attending the school.

I know from conversations I have had with the managers of the residential homes that they feel that special education provision within the homes over and above what the children obtain in the local schools would tend to institutionalise the home by adding further to the normal homework which, like every other child, the children in the residential homes have to do in the evening.

However, there may be an argument for some pre-school education for those under four or five years of age. If the current experiment being carried out by the Department of Education in Rutland Street with pre-school education indicates that this form of education is beneficial, we could have this question specially examined. I should also point out that the improved medical examination in the normal schools and the general improvement in the detection and treatment of educational handicaps will be of particular benefit to children in residential homes where there is, unfortunately, a high incidence of such problems. The idea would be that children with handicaps, mental or physical, would go away to a special school for children with those handicaps and return to the residential home on holidays or in the evenings, the same as handicapped children return to their parents' home.

There has been a dramatic improvement in the availability of special education for the handicapped over the past few years. While at the time of the publication of the Kennedy Report there may not have been many special schools, that problem has been greatly reduced in the intervening years. In view of the relatively high incidence of handicap and the emotional problems in the residential homes, I should like to see some special assessment of these children take place over and above the normal school assessment in terms of educational and medical assessments. Therefore, I intend to ask the Department of Health what the health boards could give in this direction.

Turning to education in the special schools, education is provided for almost all children within the schools themselves rather than in local schools. There are some cases where children attending the special schools who are in secondary education go out to local schools. I think this is a very good thing as, even though they are young offenders, most of them can be trusted. In the case of Clonmel some of the boys go out to the local vocational school. That is something on which the management of the school and the people of Clonmel should be complimented.

The bulk of the education of those in special schools, as distinct from residential homes, is imparted within the schools themselves. Very special educational provision is made in these schools where there is a pupil-teacher ratio of 1:12. This indeed is more generous than in the special schools for handicapped children.

In the case of St. Laurence's, Finglas, there is a principal teacher and eight assistant teachers. Six of these teachers teach general subjects at primary school and junior secondary level, including history, geography, arts and crafts as well as the basic subjects of reading, writing and arithmetic. One of these assistant teachers is fully qualified as a teacher of the handicapped. She holds the special diploma from St. Patrick's Training College in the teaching of the handicapped. There are two assistant teachers dealing with special subjects, namely, physical education and woodwork. It is hoped that there will, in due course, be more teachers with specialist training in remedial or educational teaching of the handicapped in special schools.

In relation to Oberstown, this school will accommodate between 60 and 70 pupils from 12 to 16 years of age. The teaching staff will consist of the principal and six assistant teachers. The assistants will teach general subjects and one teacher is at present attending a post-primary remedial teaching course. Woodwork, building construction, metalwork and elementary engineering subjects will be taught. Science subjects, such as elementary biology, will be taught. There will be a teacher qualified to teach physical education, crafts and elementary catering. However, in relation to the special schools, the educational experience is a very long process. It is not something that takes place solely in class time and the relationship which the students in the special school have with the staff is intended to ensure that they can be given a vision of an alternative way of living to that which they have experienced to date. This is not done in a didactic way, but is done by example. The care staff as well as the teaching staff play a very significant role in the educational experience which children in special schools undergo.

Recommendation 2.7 is:

Aftercare which is now practically non-existent, should form an integral part of the Child Care system.

As I indicated earlier, aftercare for the special schools is being provided by the welfare services of the Department of Justice. There may be a case for involving the health boards' welfare services also in contact with the family of the offender, while the offender is in the special school, to help improve the, environment to which the offender will ultimately have to return. This is something to which I have asked that attention be given.

As regards care for those leaving residential homes, it must be remembered that when these children reach the age of 17 or 18 years most of them are capable of taking their place as independent members of the community in the same way as any children of that age. In fact, many of them do maintain close links with the residential homes in which they were reared. They frequently come back on visits and bring their friends back to stay. I have seen that on many occasions. No system of aftercare can make up for the friendship which these young men and women can and should make with other young people in the residential homes and in the locality of the residential homes while they are there. These friendships will always give them somewhere to go back to, some base to which they can always return when things are not going as well as they might. However, there may be a need in some isolated cases for some form of more institutionalised aftercare for those coming from the residential homes, but I believe they would be very isolated cases. I intend to consult the Association of Workers in Child Care and the Department of Health in relation to this matter to see if, in fact, there is need for such a service.

Recommendations 2.8, 2.9 and 2.10 seem to require legislation. Recommendation 2.8 reads:

Administrative responsibility for all aspects of child care should be transferred to the Department of Health. Responsibility for the education of children in care should remain with the Department of Education.

Recommendation 2.9 states:

All laws relating to child care should be examined, brought up to date and incorporated in a composite Children's Act.

Recommendation 2.10 states:

The age of criminal responsibility should be raised to 12 years.

In line with recommendation 2.9, which calls for a composite Children's Act, it may well be that these three recommendations which seem to require legislation should be dealt with in a composite manner—in other words, dealt with together. Some may feel that a transfer of administrative responsibility, along the lines of recommendation 2.8, would not require legislation. This I have not studied in any detail, but I shall give a personal opinion. One of the powers vested in the Minister for Education, in relation to his administrative responsibility, is that of releasing children from care. But this power, affecting the liberty of the citizen, the exercise of which could sometimes be legally challenged, could not be transferred from one Minister to another without legislation.

In any event it is clear that the placing of the main administrative responsibility in one Department is only a means to an end. The end which may have to be determined first by the Government is the long-term shape of our child care services. The long-term shape of our child-care services is in many ways tied up with the other recommendations I referred to which require legislation including the bringing up to date of the Children's Act.

Among the legal issues which are involved as well as the age of criminal responsibility are the composition of the courts which should have jurisdiction over the children, the right to take proceedings before such courts, the grounds for such proceedings, the attendance of parents in court, the period of detention, release from detention and other matters.

All these matters should be considered urgently on an inter-departmental basis; and at my request with the approval of the Minister, the Department of Education has made a specific proposal to the other Departments involved in regard to this matter. In this way the order in which the various legislative matters can or should be dealt with can be determined.

In the meantime, pending these more fundamental decisions, I have asked the Department of Education to proceed with all possible speed with our existing programme of improvement. Measures to improve the material and human quality of the lives of the children can and have a more profound effect on the children than the legal or administrative procedures whereby these measures were set in train. But I would concede that that is not always the case.

As regards administrative responsibility, namely, recommendation No. 2.8, this has been dealt with by Senator Robinson in some detail. I should like to quote from the Kennedy Report, paragraph 5.3. It states:

One cannot expect any one Department or child care system on its own to be able to cater for all the needs of the children or to make up for the inadequacies of other sectors in the social services.

In this connection I should also like to quote from the CARE Memorandum, Chapter 14 which states:

It is not necessary and hardly feasible that absolutely every service relating to deprived children be supervised at national level by one Department.

These statements highlight a difficulty which will have to be encountered. No matter where we draw the line as between one Department and the other, no matter where we lay the main responsibility, there will always be frayed edges, there will always be areas where demarcation will be unclear. Even within the terms of the Kennedy and CARE recommendations the Department of Education would retain responsibility for general education, for school psychological and child guidance service, for school attendance, for youth service, for remedial education, for education of the mentally handicapped and so on. All these are matters which bear very significantly on the life of the child in care and indeed on national policy in relation to children in care. To take another example, the Kennedy proposal that in the case of special schools one Department should have responsibility for the residential aspect of the special schools and another for the educational aspects, would introduce a duality of responsibility where in fact at the moment unity exists.

It may be that the problem it is sought to solve, namely, the lack of co-ordination in overall policy-making and in dealing with the cases of individual children, can best be dealt with by more formalised contact between the various authorities at national, regional and local level rather than by shifting responsibilities around from one Minister to another.

The dramatic approach may not necessarily be the most effective. I should stress, having said all that, that these are mere personal opinions. The whole matter is being very actively considered by the Government Departments involved and what I have stated represents my view as a Member of one of the Houses of the Oireachtas: not my view as a junior member of the Government. A proposed procedure for dealing with this matter has been suggested by my Department.

As regards the other legislative issues I outlined earlier, these will need to be profoundly considered. I listed some of the measures when I was speaking a short time ago. One previous attempt in the 1941 Children's Act to change one aspect of the law in relation to the commital of children to care was found to be repugnant to the Constitution in a court case in 1955. It is fair to record in this regard that our Constitution is very jealous of family rights. In a similar way an attempt to change the School Attendance Act in 1942 met with the same difficulties. Senators will be cognisant of the difficulties which lie ahead in the shaping of composite children's legislation.

I should prefer not to deal with the merits of the various suggestions made in this context in the Kennedy Report as they would have to be the subject of very detailed legal study on an inter-departmental basis before legislation could be introduced. As regards raising the age of criminal responsibility to the age of 12, I should point out that this is the responsibility of the Department of Justice. I should like to quote from the CARE memorandum which states:

Raising the age of criminal responsibility is frequently put forward as the most basic reform which is needed in this area. This view may be misleading in so far as raising the age would not eliminate the need for dealing in some way with children who behave antisocially although under the age of criminal responsibility. Raising the age of criminal responsibility does not mean that the State can ignore anti-social behaviour in children below that age and improvements in the procedures for dealing with children whether above or below the age of criminal responsibility would seem to be of much greater importance than a mere variation of the age of technical criminal responsibility. If there are effective, humane ways of dealing with children on both sides of the age whatever it may be, then the age itself is not of primary significance. A good deal of the present concern to raise the age is understandably inspired by a desire to exclude as many children as possible from the operation of the system as it is today.

It is fair to say that even since those words were written the system has improved somewhat and, as I have indicated, further improvements are in hand. I should also point out that, if children are in fact put in care under the age of 12 because technically they are determined to have committed an offence, this is done not because of the offence—the offence is only an opportunity—but because it is felt that the child needs care outside his family at least for a time. In general, however, I understand that the Minister for Justice is in favour of raising the age of criminal responsibility but would like the other legal implications and the administrative implications also of this to be spelled out clearly in composite form. This he hopes to put in hand at an early date.

Recommendation 2.11 states:

The present system of payment to the Reformatory and Industrial Schools on a capitation basis should be discontinued. Instead the payment should be made to the schools on the basis of a budget submitted by the schools and agreed to by the Central Authority.

Firstly, this system advocated here has been introduced in respect of the two new special schools at Oberstown and Finglas and it might be well, before extending it further, to see how it works in those two cases. There is also a capitation grant which is related to the number of children in the home. Firstly, as I pointed out earlier, the capitation grant has been dramatically increased in recent years. Secondly, it allows almost complete freedom as to how the money is spent. A budgetary system, on the other hand. would involve greater departmental supervision of the expenditure and of the income of the homes and would not necessarily bring about a larger income. However, it is recognised that the present system of payment by capitation grant rather than by budgetary system does inhibit the development of a career structure in the child-care profession. This aspect of the matter is being very fully examined at the moment.

Recommendation 2.12 states:

That an independent advisory body with statutory powers should be established to ensure that the highest standards of Child Care are attained and maintained.

No decision has been taken on this matter. If, as is suggested, the body were to have statutory powers this would involve legislation which, as I said earlier, might best be dealt with on a composite basis as suggested in the Kennedy Report. There is also an apparent conflict—at least, apparent to my mind—between the advisory functions advocated for this body and the statutory executive functions both of which, it seems to be suggested, should reside in the same body. This is something which will need to be clarified.

Recommendation 2.13 on research reads as follows:

There is a notable lack of research in this field in this country and if work in this area is to develop to meet the needs of Child Care there should be continuous research.

More needs to be done in this regard and I have asked the officers of my Department to prepare a list of matters requiring to be researched in the field of child care for consideration by the research Committee of the Department of Education. In the field of less formal research, I should add that I have led a delegation of officers from my Department to visit special schools and residential homes in Holland and Austria. I visited homes in France myself and the information I gained there is of some value in shaping our policy for the future.

Senator Robinson referred to the problem of there being no facility for the remand in custody of a boy under 16 years. Since August, 1973, work has been completed on the remand and assessment unit in Finglas, so the difficulty to which she referred no longer exists. In relation to the more serious offenders, Oberstown will open within the next couple of weeks and will take them.

Marlborough House fulfilled the function of one month's detention under the Act of 1908. However, in my personal opinion, the idea of a one month detention, which is supposed to be a form of short, sharp shock, is an entirely penal notion. If a boy needs special education he would have to stay in care for longer than one month for beneficial results to ensue. More long-term care is, as I have outlined, being provided in Oberstown and Finglas.

Senator Robinson also referred to the number of children appearing before the Children's Court. She made reference to a question which had been put down in the other House which showed that 16,000 cases had been heard by the Children's Court. I should point out that these 16,000 cases related to only 5,000 individual children.

Mrs. Robinson

Only 5,000.

Mr. Bruton

It is not 16,000; it is 5,000. In relation to the Committee of Inquiry on Court Practice and Procedure, which was set up in April, 1962, recently the Minister for Justice asked this committee to report and submit recommendations on a number of matters relating to deserted wives and the desirability of establishing a special family tribunal. This will have some connection with the work which we are putting in hand also on an inter-departmental basis. I recollect that Senator Robinson made reference to the family panels in Scotland. I have made some inquiries about these and believe that, while they are desirable, there would possibly be a difficulty here in so far as the Constitution is concerned. Any measures to deprive an individual of his or her liberty, whether it be an adult or a child, would have to be taken by judicial process under our Constitution, whereas in the case of Scotland, where there is no written Constitution, this would not be the case. I think those are the main points made by Senator Robinson.

Mrs. Robinson

They were the main areas.

Mr. Bruton

Senator West referred to St. Patrick's. I should point out that this is not the responsibility of the Department of Education and neither is it part of the subject matter of the report.

Mrs. Robinson

It is.

Mr. Bruton

It is mentioned in the course of the report but the report clearly states that its terms of reference were to survey the reformatory and industrial schools system and to make a report and recommendation to the Minister for Education. St. Patrick's is neither a reformatory nor an industrial school.

Mrs. Robinson

But it was dealt with.

Mr. Bruton

It was referred to incidentally as a matter on which they made their views known. It is not portion of the subject matter of the report and, therefore, for that reason, I am not as competent and also because this is the responsibility of another Department, to reply as well as I would wish to the point made by the Senator. However, I understand that a new educational unit has been set up, staffed by teachers of the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee, providing remedial education and mechanical and engineering training for 70 to 80 boys out of the 170 who are there. A further classroom area is being developed at the moment.

Senator West also referred to the question of inspection of residential homes. He is correct in stating that there is still only one inspector dealing solely with these residential homes, but he fulfils his statutory function of visiting the homes once a year. A domestic science inspector calls to the homes to help them in relation to domestic arrangements. Of course, this is separate from the provision for the special schools, where there is a management committee, who are involved on a more permanent basis with the running of the school.

Senator Brosnahan made a very useful contribution in pointing to the root causes of delinquency and, indeed, of the family deprivation which can lead children into the residential homes also. A point he made was that it is very necessary that the children be open to beneficial influences in the first six years of their lives. No matter how developed an educational system is, these years of their lives will inevitably be spent, to a very great extent, with their parents. That is emphatically as it should be.

The experiment in pre-school education, which is being carried out by the Department of Education in Rutland Street, provides education for half the day for the children in pre-reading and matters of that nature in the school session. In addition, arrangements have been made for the teachers and social workers attached to the school to go out and visit the homes of the parents in a deprived area, to make them aware of how they, themselves, contribute to the early childhood education of their children. We will need to assess the results of this work. One of the results which has emerged fairly clearly from it, although not on a scientific basis yet, is that to a great extent the educational success of the children is determined, not so much by their own innate ability, not so much by the attention paid to them by the teachers, but by the educational ambitions which their parents have for them. However uneducated the parents themselves may be, if they want their child to get ahead, the child will respond; but if the parent is not interested, the child will not respond. Therefore, the system of contact between parents and teacher, which is being initiated on a more intensive basis in relation to this pre-school in Rutland Street, may well point the way for future educational development in deprived areas.

I should like to draw the attention of the Seanad to the Minister's speech in the Dáil on the Estimate for the Department of Education where he announced that special consideration is being given to the designation of educational priority areas, where, possibly, such special provision could be made on a more extended basis than is currently being made. I should also like to point out that one of the causes for delinquency is probably failure at school. Children are mitching from school because they are baffled by what they encounter in the school: they cannot understand their constant failing in class and are not able to keep up with their confreres. The expansion of remedial education facilities is of crucial importance in alleviating this situation. Since this is an area for which I also have responsibility. I am pleased to announce that since taking office we have expanded by 50 per cent the output of remedial teachers each year by the initiation of a new course for remedial teachers in St. Patrick's training college in Drumcondra.

In these ways we can help towards breaking the cycle of deprivation which is at the root of not only juvenile delinquency, but also the necessity for children to come into care for other reasons.

Senator Horgan, in referring to industrial schools, made a reference to wickedness and something of that nature. I am not sure if this was the reference he intended, but I should like to point out to him that the industrial schools, which are now known as residential homes, do not deal with offenders. Even if they were dealing with offenders, our whole approach to the treatment of offenders is, and has been for some time, one of not paying attention to the offence, but rather to the need of the child. That is something which should be borne in mind.

Senator Horgan also pointed out that if a child has concerned parents in the court, parents who are anxious that the child should not be sent away, this contributes to the child not being sent away. He suggested that some form of class discrimination existed here. While not wishing to get involved in the question of judicial decisions, one could say that the fact that there are concerned parents in the court, from whatever social background they may come, is a relevant consideration. It indicates that, if the child does go home, the parents will take an interest in ensuring that he does not revert to his offence. Therefore this is a relevant consideration and something which should not be denigrated.

Senator Horgan also referred to paragraph 10.19 of the report, where there are anomalies indicated in sentencing as between children of different ages. It is fair to say that the remedying of this on a fundamental basis would have to await the introduction of legislation. However, I should like to point out that an assessment unit now exists in Finglas to ensure that children coming before the courts can be assessed in advance. It ensures that the judge has the information to pass a sentence—if you can call it a sentence—that fits the needs of the child, and not his age or the nature of the offence.

Another Senator referred to the need for guidance in the residential homes. These children have guidance available in the normal schools, through the guidance services which are being developed in the post-primary schools sector. In addition, the fact that the management of the residential homes are now receiving special training in child care should enable them to guide the children better than they may have been able to do so to date.

I should like to refer to Senator McCartin's speech, which I found to be a most impressive contribution. He pointed out something that is very fundamental. It is this. In regard to juvenile delinquency, and the necessity for children to come into care, it is significant that, despite the poverty in many areas of rural Ireland, far fewer people have these difficulties in rural Ireland, particularly in the West of Ireland, than in the rest of the country. There are fundamental conclusions to be drawn from that. There appears to be a direct relationship between juvenile delinquency and urbanisation. It is only right that that should be pointed out.

I should like to express the personal opinion that one of the reasons why this is the case is that there is a greater interdependence between neighbours and, indeed, within families, in traditional rural life—and perhaps the same is true of traditional life in the centres of cities—than there is in the new suburbia. One of the ways in which we can get at the root cause of juvenile delinquency is by a regional policy designed to revive the rural living way so that people can stay in a type of environment where, at least in so far as juvenile delinquency is concerned, there is less maladjustment than there is in rapidly expanding urban situations.

We would all like to see as much voluntary involvement as possible in the case of children in care. In this context, I should like to pay special tribute to the godparents, as they are called, the people with families of their own who take children from residential homes for the weekend, who take them on holidays in the summer time and, indeed, maintain constant contact with these children so that they will have another home to which they can go and feel part of the family.

I would also point out that the Department of Justice welfare service has developed a system of voluntary associates to assist them in their work. A point which was made both in the Kennedy Report and in the CARE Memorandum is the role which a developed youth service can play in prevention; in providing an alternative environment for the young people who might otherwise find their way into criminal activity. I have also responsibility for the youth service and I have set up a special panel of advisers on youth policy. One of the matters to which I have asked them to give special attention is the question of the role of the youth service in the prevention of juvenile delinquency. I have studied, in relation to this matter, a model in France, in the Equipe de Prevention, which operates in Paris and other large cities. I have also asked the various youth organisations for their views on how youth services could help in dealing with delinquency. I hope to ask for these views on a more elaborate basis in the near future. I have only received them on a very informal basis to date.

Another area of responsibility in the Department of Education is that for the school attendance service. The school attendance service is in many ways a first line of defence in relation to delinquency because children who subsequently commit criminal acts usually indicate their capability in this direction in the first place by mitching from school. This is a matter to which I am also giving attention. I have met the chief school attendance officer for Dublin city and discussed the matter with him. I am asking the panel of advisers on youth policy to take a look at School Attendance Acts to see how they can be better administered or perhaps improved in their provision.

The Department of Education is considering the possibility of a day-centre for young offenders. This would be an experiment and if it works it will be very useful because it will avoid full residential care for children who cannot without special care be kept up to their school attendance.

I see a greater role for the welfare services of the health boards in aftercare and certainly in assessment within the residential homes. We are also considering very actively the possibility of introducing a pre-release hostel for the special school at Oberstown, County Dublin. The boys, instead of spending the whole of their period in completely residential care, would be in a hostel to which they could return in the evening after going to school or work during the day.

I stated that the improved social welfare services of the Department of Health will be of great importance in getting to the root causes of family breakdown which lead to children coming into care.

I should like to comment on emotional disturbances. In principle, one might assume that there would be a higher incidence of emotional disturbance amongst children in residential homes. Our experience from visiting residential homes is that this, while a significant factor, is not as great as one might think. Milder cases of emotional disturbance can be handled by qualified child care staff in the homes with the support of consultant psychiatric specialists from the health authorities and elsewhere. This is something we are trying to improve. Children suffering from emotional disturbances at a point where special institutional care is required should be catered for in the same way as other children with emotional disturbance, namely, either in day schools for the emotionally disturbed or, if the need is evident, we could make provision for residential education for the emotionally disturbed. The development of facilities for emotionally disturbed children is being slowed down by the difficulty health boards experience in getting child psychiatrists. I understand that there is a world shortage of child psychiatrists. It is something which is not unique to this country.

Finally, I should like to re-emphasise that care and rehabilitation are the priorities of the Department of Education and of the Government in relation to this whole field. The punitive approach simply does not enter into the matter.

I note that Senators have expressed considerable interest in this matter. As far as the institutions within the care of the Department of Education are concerned, namely, the special schools and the residential homes, I should like to extend an invitation to Senators who are interested to visit these homes to see what work is being done there. I should also like to extend an invitation to Senators who are interested in meeting the officials of my Department who are dealing with this particular problem so that the broader policy issues can also be explained in greater detail to them than I have been able to explain them here today. It is very important that as many people as possible should have first-hand knowledge of what is being done in these homes and then they will have an even greater appreciation of the dedication and public-spiritedness of all those people involved in this vital national work.

Mrs. Robinson

I shall be rather brief in replying because I am aware that the Seanad has given very generous time to this debate on the motion relating to industrial and reformatory schools and also that the Parliamentary Secretary has given a very comprehensive and detailed reply to the debate, for which we sincerely thank him. He has put on record in one place, and on a permanent record, a great deal of valuable information about which we ought to be much more aware.

Before dealing very briefly with some of the matters that he raised, I should like to thank the Senators who contributed and who spoke on this motion—apart from Senator West, who seconded it—that is, Senators Horgan, Brosnahan, Harte, McCartin and O'Toole. The Parliamentary Secretary dealt with some of the matters they raised. I will confine myself to agreeing with a point that Senator Harte made: that what we had been talking about this morning and this afternoon is more important, and far more basic, than another controversial matter that focussed so much attention on the Seanad yesterday. I could not agree with him more. I am glad we have had such a full debate on this matter. We have had serious, comprehensive and open treatment from the Parliamentary Secretary on this subject.

The Parliamentary Secretary began by saying that the Department have had a certain reputation for secretiveness. He said that, not I! He said that his approach would be to be open and forthcoming about what was being done. He has emphasised this by inviting Members of this House to visit the special schools and the homes and also to speak to officials from his Department. I hope that we will avail of this invitation. It is very important that the representatives of the people know more of what is happening in relation to the deprived children in this country.

A very significant contribution has been made today precisely by the provision of this information on the record. As I listened to the Parliamentary Secretary I was impressed with the amount of progress in the provision of child-care services. We have had too many isolated, disjointed announcements on the opening of various schools or the provision of training services; and not sufficient P.R. work on the whole area. It is as basic as that. This did not give sufficient knowledge to either the representatives of the people or the public generally about what is being done in regard to the provision of child-care services and in the provision of expert training of those in charge of these homes and special schools concerned. This latter point is equally important. This training has been defective until recently.

I was less satisfied with the information that the Parliamentary Secretary was able to give on the other side of the coin. He dealt very fully with the provision of child-care services and showed that great progress had been made. He was less able to satisfy me on the question of the progress on the procedural structure and the reform of the law. This was probably because it is not the concern solely of his Department. Although he may say and may affirm, as he did in closing this afternoon, that care and rehabilitation are the concern of the Department's child-care services and that the punitive approach does not enter into the matter, nevertheless, the initiating machinery, except in the case of residential homes, involves a court finding of guilt. The age at which the court can do this is still seven years old. That imbalance between reforms in introducing a more care-orientated approach in the services must be balanced urgently by different machinery for assessing children and for the decision on the treatment before these children are passed on to the particular care which will be most helpful to them.

The Parliamentary Secretary's reply in a sense only tended to emphasise the problems that exist. The problems are that so many Departments have a role to play that it is difficult to resolve this. There may have been a misunderstanding in what I had said earlier when talking about what Department should take primary responsibility. I used the words "primary co-ordinating responsibility". It would be administratively impossible, as the Parliamentary Secretary has said, to have one Department administering the whole area relating to children. There is the possibility of a more creative, flexible and co-ordinating role than we have seen to date, and more real liaison and co-operation between the Departments.

The time has come for top level discussion between the various Departments that have a concern in relation to the reform of the law and of the court procedure, with the possibility of introducing a panel system procedure. It is necessary for one expert body to be set up to study this problem at a sufficiently senior level. There would be a great deal to be said for bringing in expertise from outside and not having this as a purely inter-Departmental matter. I am glad that the Parliamentary Secretary referred to the potential Constitutional problems involved, because I think these are very real. We have a problem with the very wording of sections of the Constitution whose fundamental purpose was to proclaim the importance of the family and protect family rights in the Constitution. Unfortunately, the wording in many cases can be a positive bar to progressive legislation, and the advanced treatment of children which we would like to see and which the Parliamentary Secretary is trying to provide. This is something which we cannot shirk. We must look at the Constitution. I have said this in another place and I will not go into it too deeply now. We should look at our Constitution and see whether in certain areas it is a handicap to real social reform in relation to such an important area as bringing in a comprehensive Childrens Act which would allow us to cope with children in need of care, as an advanced society would.

The question of the sentencing policy was raised by Senator Horgan and referred to by the Parliamentary Secretary. This is one of the matters that came up when Senator West and I visited St. Patrick's. There seems to be a lack of awareness among the judiciary of the facilities that were introduced in St. Patrick's. The facilities were relatively new at that time, but the sentences on the youths sent to St. Patrick's were too short to avail of them. This is one of the great problems. There is not an outward-looking judiciary or, indeed, a legal profession sufficiently aware of changes that are taking place in the system. They are not sufficiently aware of innovations made to know how the sentencing policy can best relate itself to the facilities that are available. If boys sent to St. Patrick's are there for too short a time they will not come into the educational scheme at all. Most of the sentences are too short to allow the boys to avail of its facilities. They are not assessed on merit and on educational ability, or whether they would avail of the educational facilities and make use of them. What is looked at is the length of their sentences. Some of them are automatically eliminated because their sentences may be too short. This shows the absence of liaison between the facilities that are available, the Judiciary and the legal profession. I would place at least some measure of blame on the legal profession and on the Judiciary for not seeking this information as being a very vital part of their role in the process.

Again, the Parliamentary Secretary referred to the question I had asked him about the Committee on Court Practice and Procedure and referred to the fact that they had been asked to look into this question of the possible substitution of panels relating to children rather than a children's court for the finding of guilt.

Mr. Bruton

I think I used the words "family tribunals." I am not sure whether it is quite the same thing as panels for children's courts.

Mrs. Robinson

Here, again, I think that the original terms of reference under which the Committee on Court Practice and Procedure was set up in the early 1960s are of a very narrow composition and they do not make it a good body for this purpose. This brings me back to the necessity for a more flexible body to deal with this whole area of bringing in a Children's Act. I should like to see a Children's Act, 1974, which would deal with this whole area. It is a very difficult area and it is essential that we get working on it. Sometimes one sets up a commission to delay things. Because there are so much inter-Departmental complications, there is a need for liaison, to consult with representatives of the various Departments and to have the expertise of those working in the field at home as well as knowledge of how the system is working in other countries, particularly in Scotland. This would be one way of getting a coherent and co-ordinated result and resolving the particular problems involved. I would very much welcome that approach.

I would agree with the Parliamentary Secretary, in his quotations from the CARE Memorandum, that simply to raise the age at which children would be liable to the criminal law is no step at all unless we know what we are doing with them and what the treatment of these children afterwards will be. Perhaps in ten or 20 years' time people will look back at the fifties and sixties and, hopefully, only the first couple of years of the seventies and feel that we were to some extent a barbaric society in the way in which we were allowing our children —usually the deprived, in an economic as well as in a social sense —to be treated by the procedures we set up.

I welcome the remarkable developments that are taking place in the child-care services. I urge the necessity to balance that with legislation bringing in a comprehensive childrens charter and setting up a procedure for processing these children in order to complement the care facilities now becoming available.

I should like to thank the Parliamentary Secretary for his very full reply and the House for allowing us to have this motion debated in such detail today.

Question put and agreed to.

The Seanad adjourned at 3.40 p.m.,sine die.