FUNDING INSTITUTIONS LIKE GOLDENBRIDGE

[ The following is fascinating correspondence involving a civil servant who visited a residential home with Minister for Health Sean MacEntee in the early 1960s. I think that the state allowance for each child was about �1 in Ireland at a time when it was over �4 in the North and over �5 in England. Yet in her book "Suffer the Little Children" Mary Raftery considers that the grant from the Irish government was more than adequate because it was just under one third the wage of an unskilled building labourer who had to feed and clothe a large family. Perhaps she thinks that the child care people in the United Kingdom were living in the lap of luxury?

Rory Connor
31 December 2007 ]

Funding Institutions
Letter from Joe Robins - Irish Times, 13 May, 1996

Sir,
A correspondent, Brian Quinn, refers (May 4th) to an account I gave on the Prime Time programme about Goldenbridge Orphanage to a visit I made to a residential home in the early 1960s with Sean MacEntee who was Minister for Health at the time.

I mentioned that the Sisters running the place looked exhausted and undernourished. Mr Quinn wonders what was done about it. My reference to the subsequent action got lost in the editing of the programme. As soon as we left the home, MacEntee gave a direction to the Secretary of the Department, who was with us, to have the payments to the centre increased immediately irrespective of what the Department of Finance view might be. This was done, but I cannot now recall the amount of the increase except that, for the times, it was generous.

I might mention that Finance was then keeping an extremely tight fisted control on payments to institutions. The home to which I refer was a centre for children with a mental handicap; the Department of Health did not assume responsibility for industrial schools (orphanages) until the early 1980s.

Yours, etc.,

Terenure,
Dublin.

Official Indifference
Letter from Brian Quinn - Irish Times, 4 May, 1996

Sir,
I would like to support comments made by Sister Margaret MacCurtain on the Farrell programme (April 28th). Sister MacCurtain wondered about the role of the Department of Education regarding Goldenbridge. She also took issue with appointment procedures for heads of institutions such as the Goldenbridge Orphanage. And she suggested that we might take up the matter of present day homeless.

It was disclosed that a Fianna Fail Minister and a civil servant visited a nun run institution. The nuns were brought to Ireland to care for children. It would seem that the distinguished visitors noticed that the nuns seemed hungry.

Did they ponder on the belief that the children under care could have been worse off than the nuns or were the nuns starving themselves to feed the children?

Was there any discussion in the Department of Health about what its Minister and official discovered?

Was any attempt made to increase the allowance for each orphan from 17s 6d even to �1? Or was it decided not to create a problem by asking questions?

Sister MacCurtain was entirely right to broaden the Goldenbridge disclosure and place it into the realm of public accountability. Faults nuns may have had, but they should not be left taking blame for official indifference.

Yours, etc.,

Kincora Grove,
Dublin 3