A senior leader of the Christian Brothers has said that the congregation accepted there were instances of physical and sexual abuse carried out by individuals at the industrial school in Artane in Dublin.
However, Brother Michael Reynolds, deputy leader of St Mary's Province, said the idea that Artane was an abusive institution was incorrect.
Giving evidence before the Investigation Committee of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse yesterday, Brother Reynolds said that, in the round, Artane was "a positive institution".
He said there was archival documentation verifying six cases of sexual abuse at Artane. There was also documentary evidence of 11 cases of excessive physical punishment and 14 cases of neglect.
Brother Reynolds said that there was inadequate understanding of sexual abuse in the 1930s and 40s as well as a lack of awareness of the long-term psychological damage caused by abuse. He said that the congregation had viewed the issue as a moral problem and failure rather than a crime.
He confirmed that in none of the six documented cases of abuse at Artane had the Garda been informed, even where the perpetrator had made an admission.
He strongly denied that the Christian Brothers had engaged in a cover-up. He said that, in the documented cases in Artane, action had been taken swiftly and in most instances the Brothers involved had been dismissed from the congregation. However, he accepted that these cases had not been adequately dealt with by present-day standards and that the effects on young people concerned had not been addressed sufficiently at all.
The committee was told of a letter written in 1938 to the provincial of the Christian Brothers, which maintained that the person who had abused a child "was more to be pitied than censured".
Asked about the letter, Brother Reynolds said he had no idea what it meant but that he did not agree with it.
A second letter, from 1959, maintained that a Brother who had been found to have been involved in abuse was aware that "the collar had saved him from jail".
Brother Reynolds said that the most serious documented case of physical abuse involved a boy who had his arm broken. The Christian Brother involved had been transferred from Artane to another school. Brother Reynolds said that this case had been handled badly by the congregation.
He said that, in recent years, media coverage of the school, which operated from 1870 to 1969, had been seriously unbalanced.
The Christian Brothers said that boys were well-cared for at Artane, with nourishing food and good clothing, and that the school regularly received favourable reports from the Department of Education. The death rate among students was lower than the national average. Brother Reynolds maintained that the primary school provided an excellent education although there was ongoing debate about the value of training for trade provided.
The Christian Brothers said that sporting and cultural activities were well catered for. Televisions were installed in the 1960s and a swimming pool was built in the mid-1960s.
The committee heard that, in the early 1960s, the then chaplain at the school had drawn up a highly critical report on Artane for the then Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid. This report criticised the regimented atmosphere in the school and highlighted episodes of physical abuse. A subsequent Department of Education investigation refuted these allegations.
Counsel for the Christian Brothers Patrick Hanratty said there were significant question marks about the reliability of the chaplain's report. He also revealed that the chaplain had himself subsequently been convicted of sexual abuse.
