ARTANE HEARINGS 6

Q. Yes. I think there were other administrative staff in Artane as well, the trades area, the farm, the kitchen?
A. Yes.

Q. The band and the infirmary, they all had designated people to run those?
A. They had. Some of these, their management role would be smaller than in others. Obviously there was a farm manager, who was a Brother, whose role was a very significant one. The Brother in charge of the band was strictly an administrative role, not a musical one as such. There were musical directors and so on and teachers who taught music. The same in the infirmary, there was a Brother who generally looked after the nuts and bolts issues in the infirmary, but you had the medical officer, the doctor and the nurse who looked after all the medical affairs.

Q. What forms of inspections was the school subject to?
A. Three really, three forms of inspection. Number one, from the Department of Education, the primary school was under the normal inspection of the Department of Education for Primary Schools. They were really three types of inspection. You had a general inspection in primary schools where an inspector or a group of inspectors came to a school and spent a period of a day, two days, three days a week, depending on the size of the school. All classrooms were visited and so on. Teachers were inspected at their work and all the various documentation was inspected, at the end of which a general report was issued. They inspected individuals then who were in their first year of teaching after completing training college. You had to do a two year probationary period really and there were inspections during that, at the end of which you were certified as a qualified national teacher. Then there were casual inspections.

An inspector was advised to spend about a fortnight a year in his district calling into schools and so on. In relation to the other half of the Department then, you had inspections by the Department of Education's Industrial School branch. From my reading of the documentation, it would appear that the medical section of that was carried out well and vigorously, but there seems to be little evidence that any other aspect of the institution was adequately inspected by the Department. I would have to say the primary school one, there is plenty of evidence there that it was inspected quite well. I would say in relation to the Department of Education and the institution, that included medical issues as in strict illnesses or injuries, general health, food and clothing, but I would say other aspects of it were not well, and that is referred to in the Kennedy Report and I think the Kennedy Report stated that the experience of other European countries would show that you would need at least six people in Ireland to provide that type of inspection that was needed.

The third time was there was an inspection by the Congregation visitor. The Congregation visitor was a member of either the Provincial or the general Council who came along and also spent, again depending on the size of the community and the ministries that were going on there, anything from three or four days to a week or more. His role was a double role; it was pastoral on one level, he would have met all the Brothers and met the community and so on, but it was definitely inspectorial in relation both to the religious observance in the community and in relation then to the operation of any ministries that were there, which included personnel, how the work was done, buildings and general conditions.