IRELAND
Irish Times
Patsy McGarry
Pressure by politicians on religious congregations to pay half the €1.5 billion cost of compensating those abused in Catholic institutions “is immoral and should stop”, one of the congregations has said.
The Oblates (Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate), who were severely criticised by the Ryan Commission report which investigated institutional abuse, dismissed the notion they were under “moral pressure” to pay more towards the compensation bill.
Nor do any of the 18 congregations involved “have a moral obligation to pay a share of the administration and ancillary costs of the Commission of Investigation and the redress board. Such a demand has never been made in all the history of the State,” it said.
Further, in a challenge to findings in the Ryan Commission report, it refers to “the huge gap between the way the congregations have understood their own history and the way it is presented in the report”.
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