Atheist Ireland Forum

O'Keeffe criticised for referring to Magdalen women as 'employees'
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ire ... 61930.html

MINISTER FOR Education Batt O’Keeffe has been strongly criticised for his description of women committed to Magdalen laundries as “employees” of those institutions, and for his rejection of their eligibility for State compensation.

Clerical abuse Ryan Report congregations worth ‘€20 billion’
THE 18 congregations in the care home redress row could be worth as much as €20bn.

Properties they own are among the most desirable in Ireland and around the world, with one congregation even counting Jack Nicholson as a neighbour.

Others have accounts with the queen of England’s bankers, Coutts.

The astonishing figure is based on assets from Ireland and around the world. It includes care homes, hospitals, churches, schools, retirement homes, convents, publishing houses, youth hostels, internet firms, tour companies, farms and car parks.

Philip Beresford, the editor of the Sunday Times Rich List, said: ‘Based on the figures for Irish and UK income and property, a conservative estimate would be €15bn.

But the total value of all of the 18 congregations could be as much as €20bn.’




http://neilmichael.wordpress.com/2009/0 ... 0-billion/

Catholic orders plead poverty in Irish abuse
http://www.reasonproject.org/newsfeed/i ... ish_abuse/

DUBLIN – The Catholic orders responsible for abusing Ireland’s poorest children say they’re struggling to come up with money to help their victims. Yet investigations into their net worth paint a very different picture — that of nuns and brothers with billions’ worth of carefully sheltered assets worldwide.

Irish government leaders said Wednesday they expect the 18 religious orders involved in abusing children in workhouse-style schools to pay a much greater share of compensation to 14,000 state-recognized victims. They also demanded that the secretive orders reveal the true scope of their wealth for the first time in face-to-face negotiations with the government.

“We have to ascertain how much they actually have. The government is adamant and determined that they will make an appropriate contribution,” Defense Minister Willie O’Dea said.

Abuse orders make €667m on property

By Conor Ryan, Investigative Correspondent

Monday, July 04, 2011

RELIGIOUS congregations responsible for abusing children in residential homes made €667 million in property deals between 1999 and 2009.

Almost all of these sales were made while the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was investigating years of suffering endured by children in their care.

The properties included land banks, houses, farmyards, a swimming pool, a warehouse, sports grounds and convents.

A quarter of all these trades involved the 2,088-member Sisters of Mercy. Its four provinces sold 195 properties, including a €32m deal for 16 acres in Killarney.

The order still retained over €1 billion in land assets after these deals.

The 250-member Christian Brothers made €79m in the decade under review and the smaller Oblates of Mary Immaculate featured prominently because of the €105m it made by selling its Belcamp campus in north Dublin.

The top 13 trades by the orders brought in a combined €409m, while 313 units were sold for less than €1m apiece and together raised €81m.

Many of the orders have set aside millions from this activity to care for their aging congregations and clients in their care.

The €667m total consists of the revenue of 17 of the 18 orders which, in 2009, agreed to renegotiate the controversial 2002 indemnity deal.

The records of the transactions were supplied to the Department of Education after the Government demanded a review of their assets ahead of any re-negotiation.

The subsequent sales returns consisted of over 395 properties in the Republic, the North, Britain and America.

The details were released to the Irish Examiner with the orders’ agreement.

Some properties were transferred to community, public and diocesan bodies for nominal fees. Others were bought at peak prices by speculators and developers.

The asset review happened after a public backlash following the Ryan Report two years ago. The report’s contents forced the Government and the orders to revisit the deal which capped the liability of the orders at €128m. On the basis of the review the orders raised their offer to €476m. This was to go towards compensating victims, building the new National Children’s Hospital and erecting a memorial.

However, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn is seeking further property transfers. He wants the orders’ overall contribution to hit €680m, which would be half of the state’s €1.3bn compensation bill.

Despite these sales, the various orders retained a bank of property assets worth €3.07bn and a financial assets of €704m.

Valuations on the properties still owned by the orders were done in mid-2009 and do not reflect price falls since then.

The Conference of Religious in Ireland (CORI) is the representative body for all orders, including those not involved in the abuse scandal. It said it had no role or responsibility on this issue and would not make a comment on the sales data.

Efforts were made to contact all of the orders involved. Nearly all chose not to add anything to the financial reports submitted to the department.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, July 04, 2011

Minister warns Church on abuse: I’ll send in the bailiffs
Irish Independent
Tuesday July 05 2011

The Government has threatened to send in the bailiffs after only two of 18 religious orders responsible for horrific child abuse moved to breach a compensation shortfall of up to €375m.

Despite the Catholic Church agreeing to cover half the €1.36bn bill for clerical child abuse claims, the congregations have refused to budge.

In the clearest signal yet that the Government is determined to force payment, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn is to pressure the orders to sign up to laws allowing the state to seize assets.

The Minister said he was disappointed at offers made since the 2009 Ryan Report revealed the shocking extent of decades-long sexual, physical and psychological abuse of the most vulnerable in institutions.

"The congregations' total offers fall well short, by several hundred million, of the €680m contribution they should bear towards the cost of institutional residential child abuse," he said.

"In April, I called on the orders to consider handing over appropriate school infrastructure as a way to make progress towards the 50:50 target contribution. I reiterate that call now."

The Department of Education said the 18 orders of priests and nuns offered €128m in cash, property and counselling services as part of a controversial indemnity deal dating back to 2002.

This was increased in 2009 to €348.5m after the Ryan report called for the 50:50 split between state and church - a cash pot of more than €100m, which was boosted by property which the orders valued at €235.5m.
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Mr Quinn has written to the 18 orders with his response to their offers and asked for meetings to pursue the massive shortfall.

The Government said it has only received 20.6m euro (£18m) in cash to date.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news ... 13555.html

Any transfer of properties to the State may be complicated by a decision by religious congregations to move ownership of schools into trusts in recent years.

In 2008, the Edmund Rice Trust assumed ownership of Christian Brothers and Presentation schools, while the previous year five female religious congregations, including the Sisters of Mercy and Daughters of Charity, transferred more than 100 secondary schools to Catholic Education an Irish Schools Trust.

The Department of Education said Mr Quinn would seek “the congregations’ agreement to a legal mechanism which would ensure that title to school infrastructure properties would be transferred to the State, at the State’s request, and that title to such properties could not be altered, whether by sale on the open market or by transfer into any trust arrangement, without the prior consent of the department”.

This it?

http://www.irishexaminer.com/features/o ... 60307.html

Quinn meeting boycotted by 'demonised' religious order
By Breda Heffernan

Saturday July 23 2011

ONE of the largest religious orders criticised in the Ryan report boycotted a meeting with Education Minister Ruairi Quinn yesterday, saying it has been "misrepresented and demonised".

The Sisters of Mercy said it had twice sought a private meeting with Mr Quinn and was not prepared to take part in a joint meeting with the other religious congregations.

In a statement released yesterday, the sisters delivered a ultimatum to Mr Quinn, saying that if he did not accept a portfolio of properties offered by it as a contribution to the €1.3bn compensation bill, then they would dispose of them elsewhere.

They said five of the properties would be offered to various local authorities, while two others would be sold and the proceeds given to the new national children's hospital.

However, Mr Quinn last night rejected the offer and said the properties were considered by his department and the Office of Public Works and were found to not to be of use to the state.

The order said the properties were valued at just under €81m in December 2009. They are expected to be worth considerably less now.

Sister Coirle McCarthy, congregational leader, said that in the past 10 years it had donated cash and property worth more than €1bn without seeking public recognition.

She cited the example of the congregation's transfer of 66 secondary schools to an independent Catholic trust.

"However, the sisters believe that they have been misrepresented and demonised in recent years and that their congregation has been portrayed in a way that seeks to undermine their voluntary service to this country and beyond," she added.

Problems

Three other orders -- the Rosminians, the Daughters of the Heart of Mary and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity -- were not present at the meeting at the Department of Education in Dublin yesterday. however, their non-attendance was due to time-tabling problems. Some of the orders are comparatively small and their leaders were out of the country.

As they left the department, several of the orders described the meeting as "constructive" and "positive" and said they had agreed to enter into further discussions.

Addressing the orders, Mr Quinn was blunt in his criticism, saying their offers of additional contributions were "both individually and collectively disappointing".

He gave the example of a congregation that proposed to transfer an old primary school into state ownership while another offered €1m and to refund some or all of its legal costs.

"I believe that there is a moral responsibility on your congregations to significantly augment your contributions. This issue will not go away," he told them.

Speaking to reporters afterwards, Mr Quinn said he was willing to meet all the congregations, including the Sisters of Mercy, individually.

"The orders were at pains to indicate there was more than just themselves involved in the administration of the institutions and I accept that and I will now be looking at just what the implications of that are."

However, he added: "I think the body of public opinion clearly is of the view that there should be a fair and reasonable settlement, that 50:50 is fair."

Mr Quinn also met a number of survivors of institutional abuse earlier in the day.

Abuse victim Paddy Doyle, author of 'The God Squad', described it as a "business-like meeting" and said Mr Quinn had "his hand firmly on the pulse".

"I reckon he is genuinely listening and he is adamant he will take on the church and the religious and get as much as he can out of them."

- Breda Heffernan

Irish Independent

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Sister Coirle McCarthy, congregational leader, said that in the past 10 years it had donated cash and property worth more than €1bn without seeking public recognition.

She cited the example of the congregation's transfer of 66 secondary schools to an independent Catholic trust.
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