Corporal punishment administered at industrial schools run by the Rosminians in Co Tipperary and Co Cork was at times excessive and brutal, the Provincial of the Order said yesterday.
Giving evidence before the investigative committee of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, Fr Joseph O'Reilly said that he also "absolutely accepted" that at times children at St Joseph's Industrial School, Ferryhouse, Co Tipperary and at St Patrick's Industrial School, Upton, Co Cork had been hungry and cold.
He also acknowledged that the quality of the food provided for staff who worked and lived in the schools had been of better quality than that given to the pupils residing there. Asked why this was, Fr O'Reilly said that he would say that the staff felt that they needed it.
"This type of situation happens all over the place. Why do people working in Africa eat better than the people they are looking after. It would have been so much better if the food had not been as poor as it was," he said.
He also acknowledged that there had been a considerable amount of sexual abuse at both institutions. He accepted that no complaint had been made to gardaí until 1995 although the Department of Education and Justice had been informed of incidents in 1979.
Fr O'Reilly said he did not believe that the response of the Rosminians was aimed at covering up the issue of abuse.
He said that he accepted the evidence given to the committee by former residents that they had experienced "enormous anxiety and fear" in the schools. He said there was a sense punishment could have come at any time.
Counsel for a number of complainants, Eoin McCullough SC, asked about evidence of boys being punched, hit with hurleys and beaten with a strap into which coins had been sewn. He put it to Fr O'Reilly that children had been beaten for giving cheek, for playing soccer too frequently, for horseplay, for laughing in chapel and for bed-wetting.
Fr O'Reilly said that clearly there had been a range of reasons for which corporal punishment had been administered. However, while he accepted that there had been brutality at times, he said that he would find it difficult to go as far as saying that there had been a "regime of brutality".
He said he had no doubt that boys had been hit with an open hand. However, he said that he found it difficult to believe that hurleys had been used. He also said he had heard some evidence about the strap embedded with coins, but that this had also been contradicted by other witnesses.
Fr O'Reilly acknowledged that boys who ran away from the schools had been severely beaten. He said that there had been a lack of supervision of prefects in the schools and accepted that a great deal of the punishments had not been recorded as officially required.
Fr O'Reilly said that the whole system had been fundamentally flawed. He said that the children had had enormous needs and that the people to take care of them had enormous needs themselves.
The committee also heard that corporal punishment continued at Ferryhouse until 1993 - 11 years after it was officially abolished in primary schools.
Fr O'Reilly said that "we sought advice from the Attorney General and were told that special schools were governed by the 1908 Act and not ministerial orders, and that we were entitled to continue to use corporal punishment at Ferryhouse".
The committee heard that in 1989 a senior manager at the school had indicated strong opposition to the Department of Education about the abolition of corporal punishment. Fr O'Reilly said that in the late 1980s the school was being rebuilt, was a dangerous place and that the threat of corporal punishment was perceived to be necessary.
