Nothing has been found in the records to support abuse allegations made by former residents of a Kilkenny industrial school, the child abuse commission has been told.
The superior general of the Religious Sisters of Charity, Sister Una O'Neill, told the commission's investigation yesterday that there was nothing on the congregation's files or those of the Department of Education to substantiate allegations made by 11 former residents of St Patrick's industrial school.
St Patrick's was run by the Sisters of Charity from its beginning in 1879 to its closure as an industrial school in 1966. It is now a residential centre for people with physical and mental disabilities, and is still run by the Sisters.
The congregation became aware formally of complaints about St Patrick's on November 27th, 2000, said Sister O'Neill, when they were contacted by solicitors acting for a former resident who had alleged abuse.
During the summer of 1999 a former resident had called to St Patrick's to inquire about his step-brother's grave. He told a sister there that he had been sexually abused by a man working in the laundry at the school. Subsequent inquiries failed to establish who this man was, she said.
She told the committee that over the period covering the 11 complainants, from January 1st, 1933, to September 1st, 1966, (when the school closed) there had been a total of 1,282 boys resident there. All had been under 10, ageing from infancy upwards.
They were committed there by the courts, because of a lack of care. Most were from Dublin. At the age of 10 the boys were transferred to industrial schools elsewhere in the State.
The farm at St Patrick's was run by a farm steward who would have been hired by the resident manager, she believed. She was unclear about who hired the farmhands. She was aware that a number of the complaints made to the commission related to two of the farmhands.
In general, all Department of Education files on St Patrick's, discovered to the congregation last December, had been favourable in all categories, with "good, very good, and excellent" being frequent comments on conditions at the school. Other such comments included "an extremely well-run school" and "the children are well cared for", she said.
Questioned about discipline at St Patrick's, she said children were slapped with the palm or with a cane or ruler. In latter years they were deprived of pocket money, but isolation of children as punishment did not seem to happen. Children from seven to 10 years were slapped for bedwetting, but this was stopped in the late 1950s to 1960s.
She said St Patrick's was run on the lines of similar institutions at the time, with an emphasis on good order at the expense of what would be expected in childcare today.