New government continues to dither over religious abuse compensation

Nijmegen

We all likely recall the legacy of the previous government in dealing with the compensation of abuse victims while in the care of the religious on behalf of the state. The blank cheque written by the state and the clemency given to various orders was baffling.

The new government is retroactively chasing them for more money, as the previous one was finally shamed into doing.

However, not only is the minister uncertain if he'll get his pound of flesh, it seems to me a major fudge (as per usual for the Irish state): The 'money' the government will get from the religious is largely in the form of useless assets, like transferring school land to us.

Well what are we going to do, sell it? And, pray tell, to whom?

We ought to get serious with the religious orders and screw the church for its liquid assets: Force them to give us the face value cash for property, excluding schools and other essential stuff we pay for the running of anyway, and tax the hell out of them in the years to come to make up the compensation.

Make it their problem to figure out how to pay for it. See if the Vatican bank will give them a bailout.

Once again the can is being passed empty to the Irish taxpayer with the expectation that we bear the burden. We're only asking them for half the total expected amount, and what we'll get are useless assets we can't sell?

Uncertainty Over Abuse Costs - The Irish Times

JAMIE SMYTH, Social Affairs Correspondent

The Government has said it is "not confident" it will be able to recoup from the church half the cost of the State's €1.36 billion compensation bill to settle clerical child sex abuse claims.

Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn said today he would shortly re-enter formal negotiations with the religious orders to review how they could meet the Government's target of paying half the liability.

Asked if he was confident the 16 religious orders named in the Ryan Report on clerical child sex abuse would be able to pay the €680 million liability, Mr Quinn said he wasn't.

"I'm not confident because I simply don't know what the situation is at the present time and I'm not in a situation to make any forecast as to what possible contribution there might be," he said.

"Negotiations were effectively suspended for the last year-and-a-half or so in a formal sense, although there has been ongoing contact. But it has been my intention to resume negotiations as soon as possible," said Mr Quinn.

Since the Ryan Report was published in May 2009 the religious orders, who ran the residential institutions were children suffered abuse, have agreed to pay €476 million in compensation.

Last April the Department of Education confirmed that it was to ask the congregations to hand over title to property worth €200 million to bring their share of the compensation to half of the total liability.

Mr Quinn is due to make an announcement tomorrow on proposals made by the religious congregations since April to hand over property, which includes schools and other educational establishments, will meet the shortfall.

Mr Quinn said today the cost of the redress board should be borne 50/50 by the State and the religious congregations.

"I'm going to enter into these discussions with an open mind. This is about recouping for the distressed Irish taxpayer a vast amount of money. The alternative is we have to reduce further expenditure and introduce savings in areas that we otherwise would not want to do," he said.

steddyeddy

The government needs to grow a spine to set things right again. Its inexcusable that this happened and worse that it hasnt been rectifid yet.

Red Alert

I hate to sound harsh, but we're stony broke at the moment. Any redress scheme is going to pull very scarce funds away from other essential services.

lucozader

they should take the church for everything they have and leave them penniless

Red Alert

Well they've missed the property boom. Given that there are too many apartments already, I can't imagine that large institutional buildings are going to be any use in a sell-off.

steddyeddy

Red Alert wrote: »

Well they've missed the property boom. Given that there are too many apartments already, I can't imagine that large institutional buildings are going to be any use in a sell-off.

The church are loaded. The vatican could easily afford the entire cost of the redress bill. Saying that the least the government could manage is an apology.

steddyeddy

Theres an article in the papers tomorrow detailing profits of over 200 million made recently on sites owned by the magdalene orders so it looks like money is not a problem.

Nijmegen

Red Alert wrote: »

Well they've missed the property boom. Given that there are too many apartments already, I can't imagine that large institutional buildings are going to be any use in a sell-off.

My point is that we should take them for cash.

Not only is getting property now a bit useless, getting property like schools - for which we pay 95% of the running costs - is twice as useless.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Red Alert

Inevitably though the taxpayer is going to get hit badly in such a settlement.

Nijmegen

Red Alert wrote: »

Inevitably though the taxpayer is going to get hit badly in such a settlement.

Well, the state does have a responsibility here: Just as the religious orders failed to control their child molesters and thugs, the state also failed to protect these children. You can argue over the line of who is most responsible, but the Irish tax payer is simply stumping up more cash to cover the failures of the Irish political class.

PeterIanStaker

lucozader wrote: »

they should take the church for everything they have and leave them penniless

+100000
Its not like the Vatican is short of a few quid.

Cookie_Monster

Seize every single asset they own.

If the Vatican wants to maintain a presence here they can offer to buy back some of the Churches...