Christian Brothers Rejected Minister’s Proposal

By Colm Keena
Irish Times
March 11, 2017

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The State wants the 18 religious congregations covered by the Ryan report to contribute half the total cost. Photograph: Getty Images

The Christian Brothers rejected a Government proposal that playing fields associated with their schools be transferred to a trust they had established but with the proviso that they could not be sold without the State’s permission.

It emerged on Thursday that a 2009 proposal from the congregation, made in the wake of the Ryan Report on abuse in religious run institutions, had been withdrawn in 2015.

The 2009 offer was for the transfer of playing fields that had an estimated value at the time of ˆ127 million.

The congregation’s offer was that the land be placed in a joint trust established by the State and the Edmund Rice Schools Trust (ERST), a body established in 2008 by the brothers and into which schools with a value of ˆ400 million have been settled.