Solicitor Michael O'Mahony responded critically to the publication of the Kennedy Report (1970) into industrial school reform. He argued that the statutory definition of an ‘industrial school’ (‘a school for the industrial training of children in which children are lodged, clothed and fed as well as taught’) was inaccurate: ‘a place of detention would be closer to reality’. At the Children's Court, children usually appeared without legal representation, the majority making ‘involuntary confessions’, or admitting guilt for fear of worse punishment. Insufficient numbers of social workers ensured that children were committed for want of time to investigate their respective situations. Similarly, for want of an interested party to act on the child's behalf, appeals were almost never taken. These practices, O'Mahony claimed, raised potential constitutional claims as to ‘whether all citizens are in fact equal before the law…’ Owing to the cost of legal services, however, such challenges were unlikely to arise.

The development of family, education, and welfare rights contestations in Ireland, as O'Mahony's article indicates, cannot be understood in isolation from the semi-peripheral development of the Republic of Ireland and its welfare state. Evident in the 1922 and 1937 constitution-making processes, successive Irish governments prioritised securing stable capital flows for dominant class interests.