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	State Grant Made Children Profitable By Dick O’Brien Sunday Business Post May 31, 2009 http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=NEWS+FEATURES-qqqm=nav-qqqid=41966-qqqx=1.asp More children were kept in industrial and reformatory schools than was necessary, simply to maintain the schools' financial viability, according to the report from the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. Despite the assertions of religious orders, the report found that institutions under investigation were adequately funded and that the state funding system, which involved a capitation grant, meant children were kept to maximise funding. This was particularly the case in more recent decades, when numbers at these schools had begun to fall and the subsequent drop in funding was beginning to threaten their financial viability. The Commission asked accountancy firm Mazars to investigate the "generally accepted proposition" that funding was "so inadequate that children suffered neglect and deprivation". Contrary to assertions by the religious orders and the Department of Education, Mazars found that the capitation grant was sufficient to feed, clothe and accommodate children to a "basic but adequate" level. "No child should have been hungry, cold or neglected," it concluded. Mazars found that between 1939 and 1969 funding per head did not decline in real or purchasing power terms, since changes in the capitation grant more than matched movements in general prices. The grant was, on average, 122 per cent of unemployment benefit payments, and Mazars said that it was reasonable to conclude that the payments were sufficient to support a child, as they exceeded what was expected to support an adult male. On average, the industrial school grant was 88 per cent of national average household income per head. Mazars found that activities at many schools should have contributed to the upkeep of children. For example, clothing, footwear, food and property maintenance were provided by the boys as part of their training, while clothing, cleaning, cooking and childcare were provided by the girls. In some Sister of Mercy schools, rosary-bead making and other industries provided "a considerable extra income" to the school. There was also evidence that baking and laundry facilities in some schools were being made available to the public for profit. Mazars found that one of the most well-funded institutions was the Christian Brothers' industrial school in Artane. Artane was a large contributor to the Christian Brothers' congregation in Ireland, and most of this money came from salaries paid to the brothers by the Department of Education. Stipends paid to brothers proved to be a bone of contention between the order and Mazars. The Christian Brothers were "particularly defensive" of remuneration paid to brothers, saying it "was unarguably the property of the community" since, if the state was running the institution itself, it would have paid each person employed there a salary. However, Mazars found that, when added to the living expenses provided by the school to religious staff, it amounted to "significant payment for this work". The cruxof the issue, Mazars found, was that submissions by religious orders that attempted to place a monetary value on the work of their members "did not address the charitable nature of the undertaking". Indeed, Mazars found that there was confusion at governmental level about the exact level of funding for institutions once such stipends were taken into account. The Commission found that the Department of Education had been largely ineffective in assessing the funding requirements for such institutions, due to the religious orders' reluctance to co-operate in efforts to assess funding needs. On several occasions when funding increases were requested, the department asked all institutions to submit detailed accounts. However, not all schools returned figures and, for those who did, some were unaudited. In 1951, a proposed interdepartmental inquiry into the funding of schools was blocked by the institutions themselves. A letter to the Minister for Education from the association of managers said that "members are strongly of the opinion that no useful purpose would be served by the holding of such an inquiry". It concluded that the protracted struggle to get accounts illustrated the "power of the congregations to resist pressure from the department". As a result, the resources required remained largely unknown. "Despite repeated efforts by the Department of Education to find out the different needs of each institution, it failed," the commission said. Nevertheless, the Department of Education regularly gave the green light to funding increases.
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