Welcome to the CIDP Website

Our Mission

The mission of CIDP is to promote core Christian values by working with and enabling Deaf people of Ireland by

CIDP will pursue its mission by working in partnership with Deaf people, with their organisations and with public bodies charged with responsibility to provide services for and access to Deaf people.


Current Developments

Some of the key CIDP activities currently are our participation in the now completed Deaf Village Ireland Project, the planned amalgamation of St. Mary’s and St. Joseph’s schools in September 2014, the promotion of a new Education policy for the education of Deaf and hard of hearing children in Ireland, the development of chaplaincy services to the Deaf community and the continued development of the new Centre for Deaf Education. All of these important aspects of CIDP work are described below in summary versions. CIDP is also managing three residences, two for children attending the Deaf schools and one for vulnerable adults. These residences have seen significant reduction in funding from the HSE and CIDP is struggling to manage the residences to the high standards now required on substantially reduced income from the State. The most worrying of these is St. Joseph’s House Stillorgan which caters for vulnerable Deaf and Deaf/Blind adults. This residence is grossly underfunded which when one considers that this is the only such residence for Deaf and Deaf/Blind people in Ireland is a major concern.

Deaf Village Ireland Project


On Monday the 28th of March 2011 the CIDP Board agreed to appoint John Sisk Ltd; as the contractor to build the Village. CIDP set up a new company the National Deaf Village Sports and Leisure Company Limited to manage and deliver the project in June 2011. Work on this €15 million project began in June 2011 and was completed in August 2012. The building of the Deaf Village will be spread over three phases, with Phase one being the most significant and costly. Phase one which began in June 2011 and entails the provision of new sporting, administration, social, educational, heritage and religious facilities. The contract between the National Deaf Village Sports and Leisure Company Limited and John Sisk Ltd. was signed in June 2011 and brought to a culmination three years of planning and consultation. While consultation on the detail of the design of the Village has been ongoing for the last three years, prior to that, for a two year period there was significant consultation with the Deaf community on a strategy for CIDP and how CIDP could enable the development of the Deaf community in a manner which did not undermine or patronise the community. The success or not of this strategy will be for others to judge but at least the building of Phase one of the Village ensures that the Deaf community and their organisations have a state of the art place to call home and from which the community can further develop.

The name of the project has always been the Deaf Village and while some within and external to the Deaf community have had a difficulty with the name it has managed to remain the most commonly used description for the project.

CIDP ran a competition in 2011 to see if a more suitable name could be found. The winning entry was the National Deaf Centre. This name emphasises the National element of the project given that many of the tenant organisations (IDSA, IDS, DeafHear.ie, IDYA etc) are national organisations and that the focus of the project is on the Deaf community. Following extensive consultation with the Deaf community, Deaf Village Ireland is now the agreed name.

Apart from the setting up of a company to build the Village a Management Company Committee was set up to manage the new facility once built. This was a representative group of all the Deaf organisations who occupy Deaf Village Ireland. This group designed the setting up of a governance, and management structure for Deaf Village Ireland. The idea is that while CIDP via the National Deaf Village Sports and Leisure Company Limited owns the land and buildings (as given to CIDP by the Church), the Village has been handed over to the Deaf community to manage. This has been achieved by setting up the Management Company as a company and a separate legal entity, with a Board of Directors comprised of all the organisations operating from the Village. Given the makeup of the organisations this ensures that the company is a Deaf led company, with ISL as its first language. The Management Company Committee designed Memorandum and Articles of Association which set out the purpose of the Company, the role of the Board of Directors how they are nominated and how they operate the company. This Board now controls the Village, employs the Village staff, manages all the rents, insurance and monies and ensures that the Village remains self sufficient. This company was formally set up in June 2012 and registrered with the Companies Office in September 2012. It appointed Damian Barry a Deaf Management Consultant from Northern Ireland as it first Chairperson and Sylvia Nolan the first Manager of Deaf Village Ireland.

The plans for Phases two and three will comprise the proposed amalgamation of the Cabra schools and residences for Deaf Boys and Girls and the moving of St. Joseph’s House Brewery road from Stillorgan to Cabra to become part of the Deaf Village, together with new independent living facilities. Another aspect of the Village is the establishment of a Deaf Education Centre managed jointly by Deafhear.ie, the IDS, CIDP, CDS Trinity College and the Deaf schools. The Centre is now set up and operating with Elizabeth Mathews as its coordinator.

CIDP Statement following the Publication of the Ryan Commission Report

The 2009 Ryan Commission report details the shocking abuse of Deaf children especially in St. Joseph's Institution. The number of cases and the types of abuse indicate that this was endemic in the Institution. Bad as this abuse was, it was compounded by the fact that the children abused were Deaf and without a voice.

It is no consolation to anyone including the victims and the current Board of the Catholic Institute for Deaf People (CIDP) (now the trustees of the Schools and Managers of the Residential Centres), that this happened in a different era and under different Management. It still happened, clearly people knew that children were abused and nothing was done to protect them. To all of those people, the current Management apologises unreservedly.
Read full Statement


Funded by the Ryan Commission CIDP produced a DVD in ISL featuring the three chapters on the Deaf schools and the Executive Summary contained in the Ryan Commission report.To view the ISL translation of the Ryan Commission on the chapters of Beechpark, St. Mary's Cabra, St. Joseph's Cabra and the Executive Summary click here

Upcoming Events

 

 



Ryan Commission Report

Amalgamation

The Amalgamation Review Committee (ARC) agreed the setting up of a Steering Committee to produce an agreed future Education modal of amalgamated school(s). Judith King an independent facilitator was employed to assist in the process and the three unions have joined the ARC. A workplan was agreed for the Steering Committee and this was presented to the ARC in mid December 09 and the staff forum on the 21st of December 09. The workplan and the same initial analysis can be downloaded from this site. The Steering Committee has been meeting regularly since Easter 2010.

The proposed amalgamation process for St. Joseph’s and St. Mary’s schools is completed and a special meeting of the CIDP Board in March 2012 agreed to move forward with the amalgamation and begin negotiations with the Department of Education. The final proposal for the amalgamation is set out on this website.

Following discussions with the Department of Education both Boards of Management of the schools agreed to amalgamate in September 2014. The programmes to be taught, the number of teachers required and the location of a new second level amalgamated school on the St. Mary’s Rosary site and a redecorated amalgamated primary school on the St. Mary’s Marian site are all now agreed with the Department. The outstanding issue is the funding of the new second level building which needs to be in place by September 2014.



 

Sharing the Journey

Sharing the Journey is a newly established parent lead organisation, offering unconditional parent-to-parent support to ALL parents of D/deaf and hard-of-hearing children, irrespective of communication, education or technological decisions they have made or will make for their children .Following the initial very successful ' Parent and Toddler Play Date' in 2012 monthly 'Play Dates' are being held on the St. Mary’s Marian site off the Ratoath road, Cabra, Dublin 7.Click here for further details

Deaf Education Conference
4th March 2010

The conference was organised and sponsored by the Catholic Institute for Deaf People (CIDP), DeafHear.ie, the Centre for Deaf Studies Trinity College Dublin and the Irish Deaf Society (IDS). The conference featured the launch by John Bosco Conama of a new Policy document designed by the above three organisations which set out a new future for Deaf education. The conference also featured a keynote presentation by Mark Marschark from the USA. Mark is regarded as one of the leading academic researcher's on Deaf education and is the author of the 2009 research advice paper on best practice in Deaf education for the National Council for Special Education (NCSE). There were also presentations from experts from the education and medical professions as well as current teachers and parents of Deaf children who reflected on their experiences of mainstream and Deaf schools. The presenters were both Deaf and hearing people and interpreters from Finland, Slovakia, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland were present on the day.

The conference venue was the Croke Park Conference Centre in Dublin and the attendance was 320 delegates which showed the high level of interest in the area. The programme for the day, papers presented at the Conference and the speedtext transcripts of the presenters and the open forum contributions are available via the speedtext transcripts below:

Transcripts from the 4th March 2010
Presentation to Conference on the Future of Deaf Education in Ireland 4th March 2010 - Liam O'Dwyer
Contribution of Cochlear Implants to Deaf Education – Jennifer Robertson and Rosemary O’Halpin
The Visiting Teacher Service for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing – Pat MacSitric
Conference on Deaf Education – Teresa Griffin
A Partnership Approach to the delivery of Education of Deaf and hard of hearing children – A Policy document – Dr. John Bosco Conama
The Future Education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children in the Republic of Ireland – Sean Herlihy

Deaf Education Centre

The Centre is located in two of the houses on the Marian site. The Centre opened in January 2012 under the management of the Education Partnership group and will provide an information centre for parents of Deaf children and teachers of Deaf children and a research capability. Elizabeth Mathews has been appointed as the Coordinator of the Centre. The information held by the Centre will be the names and addresses of all Deaf or hard of hearing children, their parents, their school placement addresses and contacts for all professionals working with Deaf and hard of hearing children up to the age of 20 years. Material are available on the various approaches to Deaf education, the development implications and the services available to Deaf and hard of hearing children and their parents. The materials are available via the web at www.deafeducation.ie

The Centre is currently setting up a preschool to open in September 2013 and has developed new shared reading material for use by parents with their Deaf children.

The Centre is in the early discussion stage in developing a research project to review the outcomes from Deaf and hard of hearing children in mainstream schools.