Religious organisations with significant resources cannot “play the poor mouth” to dodge paying for redress, Tánaiste Simon Harris has said.
Mr Harris said organisations that want to “show their Christianity” must step up to the plate and bankroll what is likely to be the largest and most expensive redress scheme in the history of the State.
There are serious concerns within the Government about the costs of and demand for a redress scheme for survivors of sexual abuse in schools. Asked if the State could afford such a scheme, Mr Harris said the Government will return to the issue of redress “at a future point”.
But, he said, “should we arrive at a point of a redress scheme”, the people who should be paying for it “are the people who allowed the abuse to be carried out”.
READ MORE
“The religious institutions that stood idly by as children were sexually abused in schools, including special schools, utterly despicable acts that happened over a sustained period of time with the knowledge of many,” he said.
Mr Harris said he was “with the survivors,” who “rightly want to see the perpetrators pay”.
“I’ll endeavour to be diplomatic, but I think it’s highly questionable some of these organisations who play the poor mouth when many of these are very, very well resourced organisations. Very well resourced,” Mr Harris said.
The Tánaiste declined to say if he felt such religious organisations should have to contribute even if it made them insolvent, saying: “I don’t want to get into that language.”
“But I think they have to make a very significant, a very, very significant contribution. In fact, to be honest, I think the word ‘contribution’ is wrong. The buck stops with them,” he said.
“I think if people accept accountability, if people want to show their Christianity, I think they have to really step up to the plate here.”
Analysis by officials from the departments of Education, Justice, Children, an Taoiseach and Public Expenditure and Reform found that a redress scheme for survivors of sexual abuse in schools would be at a “far greater scale” than any other scheme in the history of the State, and could have “far-reaching implications.”
Setting up such a redress scheme was a recommendation of a Scoping Inquiry into historic abuse in schools. The same inquiry also recommended setting up a Commission of Investigation.
While the Government last week agreed to set up such a commission, it has not yet committed to a redress scheme. It is understood that more information about how many people would be likely to apply for such a scheme and how much it would ultimately cost is needed.
The Government is also understood to be examining international examples of redress schemes where liable third parties were responsible for payments. This includes a scheme in Australia which succeeded in getting religious organisations to pay for redress by threatening to withdraw charitable status or state funding.
