A NUMBER of religious orders have yet to submit details of extra contributions they propose making towards compensation for institutional child abuse victims.Following a meeting in early June between Taoiseach Brian Cowen and other Cabinet members with representatives of congregations which ran the residential institutions probed by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, the orders indicated they would be willing to make extra contributions.
This followed renewed pressure on them to increase the €127 million donation they previously agreed with the Department of Education to pay towards the cost of compensation for victims who received awards from the Residential Institutions Redress Board, which is expected to reach €1.2 billion when all claims are finalised.
But responding to a Dáil question, Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe said that while responses have been received from some of the 18 orders concerned, a full set of responses from all the congregations is awaited. However, it is unclear how many of the orders have yet to submit their offers.
The minister said Mr Cowen wrote to the congregations in September requesting their offers as soon as possible, and that Department of Education secretary general Brigid McManus wrote to them again on October 22. The Government has already received the report of an independent panel which has assessed the assets of the orders, and the Cabinet is expected to consider the offers in the context of that report.
Meanwhile, the Department of Education is to identify areas where Catholic school patrons might hand over ownership of schools to the State following a meeting yesterday afternoon.
In a joint statement, both sides said the move was being taken in the context of increasing diversity of provision and that all stakeholders would be consulted on any changes. They said it is essential to plan for change in a way that takes account of demographics, settlement patterns and parental choice.
The meeting of senior Department of Education officials with Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin, chair of the Irish Bishops Commission on Education Bishop Leo O’Reilly and the Congregation of the Religious in Ireland (CORI) follows more than a year of correspondence on the issue.
Dr Martin and Bishop O’Reilly have given repeated indications in the last year that the hierarchy would be willing to hand ownership of some primary schools to the state where there is parental demand for a more diverse provision of primary education.
The Catholic bishops are patrons to more than 90% of the country’s 3,300 primary schools, while almost 400 of the country’s 730 second-level schools are run on behalf of religious orders.
It has been mentioned that Vocational Education Committees (VECs) could possibly taking over as patrons of newly constituted multi-denominational schools.
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