A group representing survivors of child sexual abuse at Spiritan schools has called on the congregation to implement a redress scheme no later than June 1st this year.
Restore Together said that, while it welcomes reports that the Spiritans have been making legal settlements with survivors who had taken court action, it did not believe any survivor should have to issue legal proceedings to obtain justice.
“Child welfare and trauma experts agree that having to bring legal proceedings to seek justice adds to the suffering of victims/survivors, many of whom are very vulnerable,” it said.
As reported in The Irish Times on Wednesday, the Spiritans have paid €8.8 million in settlements to 125 abuse survivors who initiated court proceedings against the congregation. The figure does not include legal costs.
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Of that figure, €3.4 million was paid in settlements to 52 survivors of 58 who have come forward since RTÉ broadcast its Blackrock Boys radio documentary in November 2022. Between 1998 and prior to that broadcast in November 2022, the congregation paid €5.4 million in settlements to 73 survivors.
To date Restore Together has supported over 300 survivors of sexual abuse at Spiritan schools and has been working with the congregation “to bring healing to those who suffered as children and continue to suffer as adults through a professionally guided and administered programme of restorative justice.”
In a statement on Friday, it accused the Spiritans of operating a two-tier system when it came to redress.
It was “not acceptable” that the congregation was “treating victims/ survivors who issue legal proceedings against them with greater urgency than the many who wish, in good faith and for good reason, to obtain financial recognition for the harm done to them through a redress scheme that the order has agreed to in principle,” it said.
It also added that “financial awards under the redress scheme should be at the same value that a court would award to a successful claimant”. The Spiritans in Ireland had “very significant assets which it has valued at €160 million in its accounts. This is multiple times the amount that would be needed to fully implement a redress scheme,” Restore Together said.
Spiritan schools concerned are Blackrock College and Willow Park; St Mary’s College, Rathmines; St Michael’s College, Ballsbridge; Templeogue College, in Dublin, and Rockwell College in Co Tipperary.
The congregation had agreed to a redress scheme “in principle, as one of five pillars of its restorative justice programme” and that there have been detailed discussions “with the Spiritans and their lawyers about its structure, nature and implementation,” Restore Together said.
It had “repeatedly emphasised” to the Spiritans “the urgency of providing redress to victims to help with their healing. Every week that goes by without a redress scheme being in place prolongs the suffering, and in some cases despair, of victims/survivors who have come forward in good faith having carried their burden for decades through their lives.”
Ongoing delay “repeats and continues the sense of betrayal and abandonment first felt by victims/survivors as innocent children” while “many victims/survivors are now in the later stage of life and should not have to wait any longer for proper recognition by the Spiritans of their failure to protect the children in their care or wait for the justice to which they are entitled,” it said.
The Spiritans own “principles and Christian teachings” required them “to show true repentance and to fully atone for what they as a congregation did to these vulnerable children,” it said.
