Child Abuse Victims Call on the Church to Pay up, Irish Post, August 26, 2009

Child Abuse Victims Call on the Church to Pay up

Irish Post
August 26, 2009

http://www.irishpost.co.uk/tabId/550/itemId/5181/Child-abuse-victims-call-on-the-Church-to-pay-up.aspx

SURVIVOR organisations in Britain are backing fellow groups in Ireland who are calling for religious orders to pay ˆ600million directly to victims of institutional sex abuse.

The call came as controversy still rumbles on in the wake of the Ryan Report into Ireland’s sex abuse scandal.

Mary Murphy from the Irish Victims of Institutional Child Abuse in Manchester said it was now time for the religious orders implicated in the affair to accept their financial responsibility to those who had suffered.

She said: “It’s all very good getting an apology, but the religious orders are still to pay up and some of the payouts so far have been pretty miserly.”

Her call followed a similar demand from survivors groups in Ireland for the Irish Government to honour a promise made in 2002 that any compensation awards would match average High Court payouts in personal injury claims.

A summit meeting in Dublin also accused the religious orders of trying to draw out talks on additional payments — which were originally set at ˆ127million by the then Bertie Ahern Government in 2002.

A joint statement by the survivors groups called on Taoiseach Brian Cowen to name Children’s Minister Barry Andrews as chief co-ordinator to channel the extra money to victims without administrative hold-ups.

Mary Murphy said: “I was at a survivors meeting in London recently and there was a lot of talk about the future and less talk about personal pain. “The clear message was that there was a need for a more political understanding of the survivor issues.

“This financial responsibility would be part of that process.”

And Sally Mulready from the UK Women’s Survivors Group added: “I agree that any extra resources should be for the benefit of survivors and not lawyers and other professional bodies that have already benefited far too much.”

A spokesman for survivors groups in Ireland said an adequate compensation package would require religious orders to pay an equal 50 per cent share of the ˆ1.3billion cost of the redress scheme. This amounts to ˆ750million and as the orders have already contributed in the region of ˆ127million they would have to find an additional ˆ600millionplus.

Meanwhile, survivor groups in Britain are also calling for a more direct input into decisions being made by the Irish Government on their behalf.

A spokeswoman said: “It is frustrating that neither Ministers nor their officers can offer survivors in Britain, who represent two thirds of all survivors, any opportunity to negotiate for ourselves.

“We have repeatedly asked to meet with Ministers and officers at Health and Education departments and are drawing a blank.

“We want to have a direct input into decisions that are being made that affect all survivors over here.

“We want to raise matters such as late applications to the Redress Board, availability of medical records, addressing the issue of criminal/judicial records and we need assurance with regards to the five outreach services over here.”