By Ian Guider and Colm Heatley
Bloomberg
November 25, 2009
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aJcRysM3kqic
Ireland's Christian Brothers will pay 161 million euros ($242 million) in compensation to child abuse victims in the wake of a report that led to a public outcry about abuse by religious orders in church and state-run institutions.
The Christian Brothers will hand over 34 million euros and transfer 127 million euros of land to the government, it said in a statement today. The land consists of school playing fields and the payment represents about 67 percent of the order's total assets, it said.
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The so-called Ryan Report published in May detailed decades of beatings and rapes at orphanages, schools and hospitals and said church authorities covered up the abuse. Thousands of people marched through Dublin a month later in solidarity with victims and President Mary McAleese said that the abusers should face criminal charges.
"We understand and regret that nothing we say or do can turn back the clock for those affected by abuse," the Christian Brothers statement said. "Our fervent hope is that the initiatives now proposed will assist in the provision of support services to former residents of the institutions."
Political leaders including Prime Minister Brian Cowen asked the orders to contribute extra money to a fund after the report and the government set up a panel to study assets of religious orders.
'Outraged'
The Roman Catholic church has been rocked in recent years by abuse scandals stretching back decades. Pope Benedict XVI said last year that he was "outraged" by the sex abuse scandals.
A report on how Church authorities in Dublin dealt with allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests between 1975 and 2004 is scheduled to be published this week. The report, compiled by a government appointed commission, deals with a sample of 46 priests in the Dublin diocese.
Some details from the report were published in Irish newspapers this week, prompting reaction from support groups, who said victims of abuse had to read "piecemeal accounts of their horrific experiences."
"We call on the Church Hierarchy to pay the Dublin victims full and proper recompense without the excessive legal wrangling that has been a feature of these scandals," the Irish Survivors of Child Abuse group said in a statement yesterday. "The church has a supreme moral responsibility to the victims to start a restorative process now."
To contact the reporter on this story: Ian Guider in Dublin at iguider@bloomberg.net.
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