THE STATE is still owed almost €36 million in properties which the Catholic Church agreed to transfer as part of an indemnity deal with the Government relating to compensating victims of clerical abuse, a Dáil committee heard yesterday.
This is partly due to problems surrounding 11 properties owned by the Rosminian Order, which have still to be transferred over, the public accounts committee was told.
During an appearance before the committee yesterday, Department of Education secretary general Brigid McManus said the total compensation bill for the Residential Institutions Redress Board is now expected to reach €1.1 billion.
This is lower than previous estimates and reflected a fall in the value of overall awards made under the scheme, she said. Some 4,000 applications are still to be processed.
Under a deal agreed with the State in 2002, it was agreed that 18 religious orders would pay €128 million in cash and property as their contribution to a redress scheme for survivors of religious- run residential institutions in return for an indemnity against future claims. This prompted some to claim that the church had received favourable treatment. Ms McManus said yesterday that the €128 million figure included almost €62 million in cash and funding for counselling, and €66 million due from the transfer of 64 properties. However, to date, the title of properties worth about €19 million had been fully transferred, while some legal work remained to be done on a further €11 million worth of properties which had been transferred over.
This left a total of some €36 million worth of properties which remained to be transferred to the State, she said. Asked by committee member Róisín Shortall (Lab) when she expected the outstanding properties to be transferred, Ms McManus said there were 19 "problematic" cases.
Eleven of these belonged to the Rosminian Order. One of these had a particular issue with the title and appeared to be holding up the transfer of the other properties, she said. The order had offered the department cash but the State was seeking the title to the properties.
A further eight properties were problematic but were not Rosminian properties, while 22 were with the Chief State Solicitors office for processing.
"It is extraordinary at this stage that such a large figure is outstanding," Ms Shortall said.
A spokesman for the Rosminian Order was unavailable yesterday.