Mary White (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State. Approximately 29,500 young people born after 1930 were committed by the courts to industrial and reformatory schools. In addition, a significant number, which cannot be accurately quantified by the Department of Education and Science, were committed by parents. Such committals were made because the parents were poor and could not afford to nourish their children. The children were committed at a time when sexual mores and property regulations in society were ruthless and cold. The majority of society was in a stranglehold of puritanism, sexual mores and property rights. The upper class kept children born outside marriage. Throughout history aristocratic young people born outside marriage received titles and honours. However, the Roman Catholic Church, under Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, determined and ruled our lives. I was born in 1944 and the church ruled my life morning, noon and night until I was in my mid-twenties.

Many of the institutions were privately owned by the religious orders but they were regulated by the State. This cold and heartless system continued until 1975 when, eight years after the inquiry chaired by District Justice Eileen Kennedy was set up to deliver a report on reformatory and industrial schools, the last institution was closed. There was a suspicion at the time that this was done because Ireland wanted to present a good face to the rest of Europe. We did not want too close an inspection of this system by the EEC. Where would we be if Ireland had not joined? I had to give up my job in the Civil Service when I got married in 1969. It was not until 1973 that female civil servants who were married could keep their jobs.