The Government should consider taking legal action against religious orders if they refuse to contribute to a future redress scheme for people who were sexually abused in schools, a Sinn Féin TD has said.
“Everything should be on the table” when it comes to ensuring orders contribute, up to and including seeking the seizure of their assets, Darren O’Rourke said.
The Government established a commission of investigation into the handling of historical child sexual abuse in schools last July, after a scoping inquiry suggested the potential scale of such abuse was very significant.
An interdepartmental group was established to examine the scoping inquiry’s recommendations, including how a potential redress scheme should be funded.
READ MORE
In a written update to the Oireachtas education and youth committee, the group said it would “examine how any such scheme could be funded by those responsible for schools where sexual abuse occurred”.
The group also said it would consider how other redress schemes, in the State and abroad, operated and “the potential scope and objectives of any future redress scheme, including the potential costs”.
The group aims to complete its work within 18 months.
O’Rourke, Sinn Féin spokesman on education and youth, welcomed the fact that there was “a commitment to a comprehensive assessment of options”, but said religious orders must be “held accountable”.
The level of contributions made by orders to previous redress schemes in the Republic has been criticised in the past.
Last year, it emerged that only one order involved in the running of mother and baby institutions had made a “serious offer” of cash to make redress to survivors, after years of negotiations. A number of survivors are taking legal action against the State over their exclusion from this particular scheme.
Several orders contributed to a separate redress scheme set up after the 2009 Ryan report detailed “endemic” sexual and physical abuse in industrial and reformatory schools. Despite efforts by the Government to ensure the cost of the €1.5 billion scheme would be split equally between the State and religious orders, taxpayers are expected to pay the majority of the bill.
Minister for Education Hildegarde Naughton said the State “has some experience in dealing with the religious orders in the context of redress, and it is important we learn from that experience, particularly given the potential scale of redress for historical sexual abuse in schools”.
Replying to a recent parliamentary question from O’Rourke, Naughton said the “scale” of the future scheme was not yet known.
“All mechanisms that can be used by the State to secure the appropriate funding from those who were responsible for child sexual abuse in schools will be carefully examined,” she said.
“It is important to ensure there is financial accountability for those who were responsible for child sexual abuse in schools, particularly as so many of those who are alleged to have abused children are now deceased and will not face criminal charges.”
In December, Labour introduced a Bill that would facilitate civil proceedings against unincorporated bodies such as religious orders and provide a mechanism for recovering damages from trusts associated with these organisations.
“Despite the passage of time and the revelations of institutional abuse, many of the fundamental power imbalances remain,” said Labour leader Ivana Bacik at the time.
“Victims are often retraumatised by flawed redress processes or dragged through lengthy legal proceedings, due to the reluctance of religious orders to fully engage in delivering justice.”
Bacik said successive governments have “repeatedly failed to compel religious orders to pay their fair share of redress, and many [orders] continue to evade responsibility through legal and financial manoeuvring”.
