Former judge Donnell Ryan to review church complaints scheme

By Rachel Baxendale
Australian
August 25, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/former-judge-donnell-ryan-to-review-church-complaints-scheme/story-e6frg6nf-1227036392316

The Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart has ordered a review of the catholic church’s complaints scheme.

CATHOLIC Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart has appointed a former federal court judge to review the church’s complaints scheme, despite maintaining the process is conducted with professionalism and compassion.

Archbishop Hart told the child abuse royal commission in Melbourne this afternoon he had appointed Donnell Ryan QC to head a review of the Melbourne Response.

The scheme has paid more than $17 million to 326 abuse victims since it began in 1996.

Mr Ryan will be asked to examine possible improvements to the scheme, including lifting or removing the $75,000 cap on compensation, changing how the amount of compensation paid to victims is determined, and considering whether the amount of compensation paid to victims in the past should be reviewed.

Archbishop Hart said that although he took all complaints about the Melbourne Response seriously and did not wish to discount victims’ pain, the complaints had been “relatively small” in number.

“It is my view that overall the Melbourne Response remains a sound and appropriate mechanism for responding to complaints of child sex abuse,” Archbishop Hart said.

He said the church sought always to act with “justice, charity and compassion”.

Under cross-examination from counsel assisting the royal commission, Archbishop Hart conceded that there had been occasions since his appointment in 2001 when the Vatican had not considered a criminal conviction for child sex abuse in Australia to be sufficient cause for a priest to be laicised.

But he said that if a priest had been shown “certainly by legal sentence, but even by recommendation of the independent commissioner” to have engaged in abuse, he would recommend that priest be laicised.

Archbishop Hart said that with the benefit of hindsight, he would more carefully have considered his decision not to stand in the way of then-Archbishop George Pell’s decision to appoint psychiatrist Richard Ball, who had treated priests accused of abuse, as inaugural chair of Carelink, the church’s counselling service for victims, in 1996.

Asked whether he understood that Prof Ball’s appointment was a matter of perception, rather than integrity, Archbishop Hart replied, “I know that. I understand that.”

Archdiocese executive director of administration, Francis Moore, earlier conceded the church could afford to double or triple the $75,000 cap on compensation.

Mr Moore said it was possible that lifting the cap could require the archdiocese to dip into its reserves or impact upon programs it currently runs.

He admitted the archdiocese was currently operating with a budget surplus “in the millions”.

Carelink coordinator Susan Sharkey gave evidence that the organisation had never had its budget for necessary treatment for victims restricted by the church and continued to pay victims’ treatment bills, including those of the first two victims to approach Carelink in 1996.

“I’m asked at the end of the year to provide a budget, but it’s quite impossible to indicate whether or not that’s going to be enough because we have no idea how many victims are going to come forward or how many are going to return,” Ms Sharkey told the commission.

She said about 600 people, including more than 300 primary victims of child sexual abuse, had received counselling through Carelink, with an average of $18,000 including $6000 in administration costs spent on each victim.