The High Court has ordered the Department of Education to produce any documents relating to any complaints that it may have received against a former schools inspector with the Department.
Any complaints made during mid-1976 to the end of 1977 when the inspector was involved with childcare institutions must be disclosed.
The order was made on foot of a surprise application yesterday by Mr Mel Christle SC, for St Joseph's Orphanage, Kilkenny. The orphanage and the Minister are being sued by a man who alleges that, while visiting the orphanage as a schoolboy during the mid-1970s, he was sexually abused by a house parent there.
Yesterday, Mr Christle applied for the production of the personnel file of Mr Graham Granville, a schools inspector who is no longer working with the Department.
Mr Justice O'Higgins refused to direct production of the file. However, he said that if any complaints were made against Mr Granville during the period involved, then the Department should disclose any documents relating to those complaints.
The plaintiff, now living in Spain, claims he was sexually abused by a house parent at the orphanage, the late Myles Brady. The court has been told the assault is not denied by either the orphanage or the Department. In evidence yesterday, Prof Robert Gilligan, who lectures in social services at Trinity College, Dublin, said the nun in charge of the Kilkenny orphanage in the mid-1970s had failed to respond adequately to a letter of resignation from a former employee who had complained that a house parent was acting in a "bizarre" manner.
Prof Gilligan was referring to a letter written by Mr Edward Murphy, now quality assurance officer for children with the South Eastern Health Board, who resigned in 1977 because of what Mr Murphy claimed was a failure by Sister Conception, the nun in charge of the orphanage, to deal with his complaints. Mr Murphy said he was leaving because he felt Mr Brady was "neither mentally or emotionally stable enough to give the boys the security and example they need". The hearing was adjourned to February 10th.