Representatives of abuse victims met the Irish Bishops Conference for discussions that lasted over three and a half hours at Maynooth this morning.
The meeting took place at the request of the victims and was described as a “gigantic step forward” by Michael O’Brien of the Right to Peace group which took part in the talks.
Also attending the meeting were John Kelly of Soca Ireland, Tom Hayes of the Alliance group and Christy Heaphy of Cork-based Right to Place group.
Accompanied by the Catholic Primate Cardinal Sean Brady and the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, they met members of the media after the talks to give an account of what took place.
Cardinal Brady explained that initial contacts with the bishops had been made during the summer and that these led to today’s meeting. He said it was the first step of many steps and he thanked them for giving their vision of the way forward.
Cardinal Brady said the meeting with survivors was a first step.
"There will be other steps," he said.
"I think something very important has taken place. We will be setting up a committee as they asked to take forward this discussion."
Asked if he regretted not having the meeting sooner, Cardinal Brady replied: "Yes I do of course, but I thank God that it has happened."
Michael O’Brien said they had requested the bishops set up a sub-committee to begin a dialogue with the groups as they moved towards closure on the issue. He said they had requested the setting up of a benevolent fund to help people who had already received redress in areas such as education and counselling and they asked the bishops to make representations to the Taoiseach to hurry up ongoing procedures with the religious congregations towards the setting up of a new trust.
John Kelly commented that they had given a full account of their experiences to the bishops, which he said must have been “very hard to listen to”. He said they had asked the Catholic Church as a whole to be more responsive to survivors and said they could have done more in the past as they had influence and a moral responsibility.
He also said that all representative groups of survivors would be involved in the ongoing process with the bishops.
Tom Hayes of Alliance said the four representatives had a mandate to be at the meeting there in that they represented a majority of the survivors. He described the meeting as an “historic day for all of us survivors and bishops together”.
Archbishop Martin said that for him it was “the most significant meeting I have ever attended in that room – it was extraordinary.”
He also said there had been “particularly good” discussions about survivors in England many of whom were old and homeless and they discussed how resources could be made available to help them.
Mr O’Brien said that today’s meeting was the first in a process. The next step would be a meeting they hoped to have with religious congregations and he said they had already met with representatives of Faoiseamh - the helpline set up by the Conference of Religious of Ireland.
