County Galway Homes & Home Assistance Committee, Minutes 1928- 30
Incomplete series of bound volumes of printed copies of minutes of County Galway Homes & Home Assistance Committee meetings, 1928-1930, recording details of attendance and proceedings of monthly meetings of the Committee, generally held in the County Home, Loughrea.
The minutes are generally arranged under headings, General, County Home Files, Children's Home, Boarded-out Children, Hired-Out Children, and Home Assistance, and Extern Institutions.
Also includes a Financial Statement, detailing receipts and expenditure, following the minutes. Also includes Home Assistance Expenditure account detailing the expenditure in each Assistance District for 'Home Assistance’ and 'Boarded Out Children'; and a General Report of Superintendent Assistance Officer for each month, in particular detailing Inspections by the Superintendent during the moment in connection with administration of Home Assistance (HA), statistics on the number of visits, and the numbers on the Assistance Register at the end of the month (with for instance the total for Nov 1928 being 801). Reports from the Superintendent Assistance Officer (SAO) on his visits of inspection to various districts are also appended at the end of the minutes, and in some cases special reports relating to specific assistance cases.
Details for the Homes generally commence with statistical details on the number in the Co. Home split between male and female, and for the Children's Home between Mothers and children. In the case of the Co. Home there may then follow resolutions relating to staffing, such as the hiring of porters, ambulance driver and nursing staff; building upkeep/ maintenance, such as the treatment of dampness in the Fever Hospital, and fixing grates (Mar 1929), and contracts for supplies, such as for milk and potatoes. May include reference to individual residents in the Home and their maintenance costs.
In relation to the Children's Home may include resolutions relating to the maintenance and upkeep of the building, such as inspection of fire extinguishers and repairs to boiler (Mar 1929). May then include details relating to specific residents in the Home, detailing for instance the discharge of a Mother and into whose care she might be going and maintenance charges (such as' _____ _______ The Secretary reported that, ....he sent the ambulance to Tuam to convey ____ ____ and her baby home to her father, but Dr Costello advised that she be not removed. On the suggestion of Sister Hortense, ____ ____ subsequently went to Tuam and had an interview with his daughter and Sister Hortense, but the girl is still in the Home.
Submitted letter from Mr Shields, Solicitor, forwarding £4.11s.4d., due for maintenance of ____ ____ and her child to the 15th ult.
Order - That _____ and child be discharged and sent home to her father' (1 Jul 1929)).
Details relating to Boarded-out and Hire-Out Children, may include reports from SAOs relating to the care, schooling, health of the children, and to the payment of a Hired-Out child. In some instances includes recommendations from the SAO to transfer the children to a different foster home, or approve particular hiring-out arrangements.
Reports from SAOs and Home Assistance Officers (HAO) in relating to individual assistance cases, their individual circumstances e.g. acreage, employment prospects, no. of children, and lists of names and address and amount issued to applicants for home assistance.
The Financial Statement details receipts generally in the region of £2,000 from the Board of Health, and other receipts such as for hire of ambulance or sale of offal, and expenditure for provisions and necessaries, clothing and bedding, Co. Home Burials, Salaries, ambulance expenses, payments in respect of boarded-out children. Sub-headings under the Children’s Home heading are often (a) Maintenance charges, (b) Medicines and medical and surgical appliances, (c), Salaries (d) Other expenses.
The SAO’s reports are often in the form of questions and answers, such as ‘General observation on economic conditions in the county:-
In Galway City, Clifden, Roundstone and Lettermore districts the economic conditions are abnormal. There is an improvement in Ballinasloe district during the month, as many able-bodied persons got employment. In other districts of the County the economic conditions are normal’ (May 1929); and ‘General observation as regards the children boarded out in the county:-
“Except in the case of ____ ____ about whom I made a special report, the boarded-out children in the county are well treated (Jul 1929).
The SAO’s reports relate to the satisfactory administration of the work of the Assistance Officers in the various districts, ensuring their attendance for dispensing home assistance at the places, and on the days and times allocated for same is punctual, particular confirming that the AO has ‘diligently examined the circumstances of each applicant for assistance’, and confirming that various account books and diaries maintained by the AO were inspected and in order.
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