Friday, February 15, 2013

Religious orders refuse to budge on child-abuse payout

NEGOTIATIONS between the State and religious orders on the multi-million euro compensation owed for institutional child abuse are at a stalemate.
Education Minister Ruairi Quinn is now preparing to bring the matter to Cabinet for a decision on the next step.

It will then be up to the Government to decide whether to continue to pursue the religious orders for a full and final settlement, and if so, how it should be done.

The Government wants the 18 religious congregations involved to pay a combined €735m – half the estimated €1.47bn final bill for compensating victims.

But, to date, the congregations have offered €480m, in a combination of cash and property.

The €480m figure has not improved since 2009 when the congregations upped their original offer following the publication of the Ryan Report, which detailed the extent of institutional child abuse.

The congregations are offering €255m less than what the State is seeking and when the falling property values are taken into account, the shortfall is even larger – last year it was estimated at €380m.

Mr Quinn has sought to finalise a deal, splitting the €1.47bn evenly between the taxpayer and those responsible for managing the institutions where child abuse took place.

But he has met resistance from the 18 orders who never accepted, in principle, that they were liable for half of the final bill and, in an event, say they neither have the cash nor assets to do a 50-50 deal.

Voluntary

When they topped up their original 2002 offer following the Ryan Report, they said they were doing so on a voluntary basis.

There are ongoing contact between the Department of Education and the religious congregations, but there has been no progress.

Mr Quinn is expected to present his memo to Cabinet over the next few months. His spokes- person would not speculate on what options the minister would present to his colleagues.

The minister has consistently expressed his disappointment at the level of contributions offered by the congregations.

He accepts that the fall in the value of cash and property assets since the economic crash has had an impact on their finances and insists he does not want to bankrupt the congregations.

As an alternative to handing over more cash or property, last year the minister suggested that the congregations transfer the ownership of educational and medical facilities to the State.

He told them that they could continue to control the facilities for as long as they desired, but that the State would take on the role of landlord and, so ultimately, be the beneficial owner.

But, the congregations say that many such facilities are beyond their reach because the ownership has been transferred to trusts, complex legal entities over which they have no control

The €1.47bn bill has arisen from the work of the Residential Institutions Redress Scheme, which was set up in 2002.

The scheme, which has now closed, received 16,081 applications, of which 15,397 have been processed to finality with 14,379 awards.