Department ‘acknowledges’ industrial school care failures

THE Department of Education has admitted it failed to ensure there was an adequate level of care for children in industrial schools over many decades.

The department’s secretary-general, Brigid McManus, also told the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse some industrial schools were not inspected for years and in 1975 no school whatsoever was inspected.

The infamous Artane School in Dublin was not inspected for three years during the 1950s.