RELIGIOUS orders still owe the Government more than €50 million of the sum they agreed to pay in 2002 to compensate victims of clerical sex abuse. While the overall compensation package will cost €1.1 billion, the controversial deal the religious orders struck with the state limits their liability to €128m — of which only €76.8m has been paid.
The rest of this figure was agreed to be paid by the taxpayer.
Figures released yesterday show the scheme cost more than four times the amount envisaged when the Residential Institutions Redress Board was set up in 2002.
Instead of paying half of the compensation fund for thousands of sex abuse victims, as originally planned, the Catholic Church is paying just a tenth of the total compensation because of the deal.
It was agreed that €128m would be paid by the Church of the original €254m compensation cost envisaged by the Government. The Church agreed to pay this sum through property, cash and counselling service in a controversial deal that gave religious orders indemnity from abuse claims from former residents of 18 institutions which they ran.
Brigid McManus of the Department of Education told the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC) the total received from religious institutions to date is €76.8m. She said of the €66m agreed to be handed over in property deeds, just a third of this, or €19.5m, has been received.
Ms McManus told the Oireachtas committee, which monitors government spending, there are “19 problematic cases” of property transfers which were agreed to in the 2002 deal.
Eleven of these properties belong to the Rosminian order who have offered cash instead, but the department has insisted it wants the property.
The deal, reached by the then education minister, Michael Woods in 2002, caused some controversy because of the comparison between what was being paid by the 18 religious orders involved and taxpayers.
Labour’s Roisín Shortall yesterday told the PAC meeting: “It seems extraordinary at this stage that such a large outstanding figure is still to be paid to the state.”
She said it is a matter of concern for the taxpayer that the deal has cost four times what the Government estimated. “It was estimated at the time that it would exceed €1bn but the minister disputed that very strongly,” she said.
In his 2002 annual report, the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) indicated that the final bill could reach €1bn.
But this was disputed by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, who told the Dáil in 2003: “Our view continues to be it will not be anything like what the eminent C&AG has said. We still believe it will be far smaller.”
The figure was subsequently revised in the C&AG’s 2003 annual report which suggested the bill would total between €608m and a €828m.
When the board was established in 2002, the Government estimated there would be 2,000 people eligible for compensation. While Ms McManus did not say how many cases have been dealt with, she said there are still 4,000 cases to be processed. Last year’s figures show 14,500 victims applied for compensation.
The scheme was set up following a public apology to victims by the Taoiseach in May 1999.
The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse is expected to publish its report in October.
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