NEGOTIATIONS:AN INDEPENDENT audit of assets belonging to 18 religious orders which were party to the 2002 compensation agreement with the State is to be completed within two weeks for presentation to the Government. The 2002 deal capped the orders' contribution at €127 million.
The congregations, whose management of residential institutions for children led to last week’s Ryan report, agreed to the audit at a meeting with the Taoiseach Brian Cowen in Government Buildings yesterday.
They agreed to contribute to a trust the Taoiseach proposed be set up, so further financial and other supports can be provided to people who had been in the institutions as children. They also committed themselves to identifying resources, “both financial and other, within a transparent process with a view to delivering upon commitments made today.”
The meeting lasted two hours and followed a three-hour meeting the previous evening at the same venue with groups representing former residents of the institutions.
The Taoiseach was accompanied at yesterday’s meeting, as he had been the previous evening, by Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe, Minister for Health Mary Harney, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern, and the Minister for Children Barry Andrews.
The Taoiseach told the congregations that he “must express the dismay and abhorrence which, with the whole of the population, we have experienced on reading the report”.
He noted that “some of the severest conclusions reached by the commission regarding religious orders relate to recent attitudes and behaviour”.
He told them that “further substantial contributions are required by way of reparation” and that these “need to be capable of being assessed by the public for their significance by reference to the full resources available to the congregations and in a context of the costs of well over a billion euro being incurred by the State”.
Calling for “a comprehensive, specific response” from the congregations, he reminded them that the response “may have profound implications for the wellbeing of survivors of abuse in affirming their dignity”.
He continued that “it may also influence how the Irish people, who have been so loyally supportive of your congregations over many years, may judge finally the extent to which your organisations live up to their foundational values”.
Speaking outside Government Buildings after the meeting, provincial of the Rosminian congregation Fr Joe O’Reilly – which ran institutions at Ferryhouse, Co Tipperary and at Upton, Co Cork – expressed shame and regret over what had occurred at religious-run institutions.
“We had a very good meeting with the Taoiseach, a meeting that is extremely helpful and had as its focus the needs of the victims,” he said.
He repeated the commitment of all 18 orders to transparency in identifying resources to be made available to assist former residents of the institutions. Fr O’Reilly was among the first to give evidence at public hearings of the commission to inquire into child abuse and his congregation was the only one singled out for praise by Justice Seán Ryan at the launch of his report on May 20th last.
Justice Ryan described the disposition of the Rosminians towards the Commission as “outstanding among the congregations” and that their attitude “was to seek to understand abuse whereas other congregations tried to explain it away”.