Sexual abuse support group under threat

A SUPPORT group for those sexually abused by the religious will be forced to close at the end of the month because the Government has refused to provide adequate funding.

Colm O’Gorman, who established One In Four, will go public later today on the organisation’s financial crisis. He is furious at the way the voluntary organisation has been treated, particularly after being personally encouraged by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, to establish an office in Ireland.

The organisation, originally established in London, had never wanted to be dependent on the State for money and was always anxious to develop an independent funding source.

Because of the time pressure it was under to set up in Ireland, the organisation had no choice but to rely on the State for money.

“We made it clear to the Government that we would need a high level of financial support for the first two to three years,” Mr O’Gorman stressed.

Mr O’Gorman was even forced to borrow on the back of his recent €300,000 High Court settlement, arising out of the abuse he had suffered at the hands of Fr Sean Fortune, to meet salary costs over a three-month period.

“I had to borrow on the back of the settlement because I hadn’t even got it at that stage.”

The organisation has already written to the Ferns Inquiry into clerical sexual abuse in Wexford explaining that they would be unable to continue support people giving evidence before the inquiry.

Mr O’Gorman said the organisation was refused funding of around €20,000 to pay one staff person on a six-month contract who could provide the high level of support required by people going before the inquiry.

The department had claimed that grant aid given to the organisation included resources for an advocacy worker and it was up to the organisation to decided how it spent it.

Mr O’Gorman said the Department of Health and Children gave the organisation €425,000 this year and claimed that the Government was withholding a further €81,000.

The organisation launched its services last March. It first received funding from the department last November so it could secure premises and employ key staff.

“We have now taken a view that we have to publish absolutely everything in relation to this because it is a damning indictment of the way the department conducted themselves,” he said.

Mr O’Gorman said an 11th hour rescue was still possible if the department managed to get funding to the organisation within two weeks, but he felt that was unlikely.