NEW FIGURES SHOW that the total adjusted offers made by religious congregations for abuse in institutions amounts to approximately 16% of the redress costs, which are estimated to be approximately €1.5 billion.
Investigations at the beginning of the 2000s into historical child abuse by religious organisations revealed large-scale, horrific abuse which occurred in institutions, the vast number of which were run by the Catholic Church.
The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (commonly known as the Ryan Commission) unveiled a vast amount of systematic institutional abuse going back decades.
The Commission focused mainly on allegations that emerged from 60 Reformatory and Industrial Schools run by Catholic orders and funded by the Department of Education.
According to the Department of Education, the total adjusted offers from religious congregations that managed some 100 of the 139 residential institutions, amounted to €435.53 million, of which €245.24 million has been realised to date.
Not including two properties, which have yet to be transferred, as of September 2024, €124.94 million of the €128 million pledged under the 2002 indemnity agreement has been realised.
Indemnity agreement
In 2002, an indemnity agreement was entered into by the Fianna Fáil Government and 18 religious orders.The State agreed to indemnify these orders against legal actions from former residents.
Following publication of the Ryan Report in May 2009, the then government called on the 18 congregations which had been involved in running the residential institutions to commit to making further substantial contributions towards the cost of residential institutional child abuse.
Under the 2009 agreement,the adjusted value of the offers made by the congregations in 2009 is €307.22 million. A total of €120.30 million has now been received under that round, according to the department.
With regard to the shortfall between the offers made by the congregations in 2009 and the actual amounts realised, it should be noted that the 2009 agreement is not legally enforceable.
In 2022, in an extensive investigation, Noteworthy uncovered that religious orders involved in historic abuse sold over 75 properties worth a total of over €90 million since 2016.
Speaking about the latest report into abuse at religious schools at the Labour think-in in Malahide today, Ivana Bacik highlighted that many orders were slow to making redress payments in previous abuse scandals.
She said the government must learn lessons from the past in terms of devising a redress scheme for the latest revelations of abuse in religious schools.
“We’ve heard from government a call on religious orders to step up and pay their share of redress. Unfortunately, the last big redress scheme in this state, religious orders did not pay their fair share,” said Bacik.
“Far too many hid behind what we might describe as the ‘developer’s wife system’, where their assets were transferred to trusts. What we want to see with this new set of revelations, is the religious orders made to pay their share,” she said.
Lessons from past redress schemes
She said lessons must be learned from the past, and government must ensure a better system is set up to ensure the orders must pay up. She said the redress scheme must be set up in parallel with the inquiry so as to ensure there is no delay in payments to survivors.
She said religious orders must “step up and pay their fair share of redress”.
“I think we learn from that, and I think it’s now up to government, and the opposition, we will work with government on this, to devise a better scheme, a scheme that is better suited for the needs of survivors,” said Bacik.
Seizing assets
Asked about whether assets needed to be seized by the religious orders if they fail to pay, Bacik said: “I hope it won’t come to that. I think that we’ve seen in the past, the religious orders not stepping up and not paying their share. I think we need to see them stepping up now.”
While she said there is nothing illegal about the trust system that’s been set up, she believes there are “serious ethical questions that must be asked of religious orders where an order has divested its assets to a lay trust”.
“I think we have to look again at how we can make religious orders liable, and I do hope religious orders will have learned,” she added.
The Labour leader went on to state that she wants to see the government go further by accelerating the divestment of schools from religious orders, which she states has been taking “far too long”.
“Our school system in Ireland, uniquely in Europe, has been religious dominated. Over 90% of our primary schools still with religious orders. We need to ensure that there’s divestment, and that we see that process initiated by [former Labour Education Minister] Rory Quinn, now speeded up,” she said.
She said the Commission of Investigation should be widened to include more schools but said the inquiry should first look at those schools which have been subject to the scoping inquiry.