AUSTRALIA
The Age
May 29, 2015
Jane Lee
Ballarat Bishop Paul Bird doubts the diocese will be able to afford all the compensation claims it expects to receive from survivors of clergy abuse.
The diocese had worked with Catholic Church Insurance to try to estimate how much they may have to pay in compensation claims for historic and current child abuse, Bishop Bird told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Friday.
The Bishop – the final witness for the commission’s Ballarat hearing –was “not confident” about the sum, but said he had “doubts that we could meet those claims” as the diocese’s finances were “not very strong.”
Claims not covered by Catholic Church Insurance were paid out of a fund set up by a bequest in the 1930s. There was $1 million still in the fund, the commission heard.
The diocese also owned “very few” small parcels of land held by a trust and had a more than $100 million development fund, contributed to by the diocese and other investors.
Since January 1980, at least 130 claims and substantiated complaints had been made against the Diocese of Ballarat for child sexual abuse, including seven jointly held with the Christian Brothers.
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