Abuse compensation claims unlikely to bankrupt Church

COMPENSATION claims made by abuse victims are unlikely to bankrupt the property-rich institution.

Although the Church remains silent as to its property worth and an audit carried out by the Department of Education remains under wraps, property experts put the value of the Church’s Irish property portfolio in billions.

According to a review in the Irish Property magazine, the combined property of the Catholic Church’s constituent orders and trusts came to some €3.8 billion four years ago.

That makes the Irish Catholic Church by far the biggest institutional owner of land and property in the country. While Church leaders declined to say how compensation payments would be met, it is likely individual dioceses will have to sell propertyto compensate clerical abuse victims.

However, controversially, much of the Church’s land and property is protected, a spokesperson for the Bishops Conference said yesterday.

Just how it was protected is largely unknown, although much property is thought to be managed through complicated trusts.

Other property which is part of a charitable organisation cannot be used to fund any compensation payments.

Last year just 18 of the 129 separate religious orders affiliated to the Conference of Religious of Ireland funded a €128m payment to the Government’s Redress Scheme for the victims of childhood abuse.

Irish religious orders still own over 100 acres of open land within Dublin city including prime Southside tracts worth in excess of €1 million an acre. Recent sales include:

Carysfort College sold to UCD in 1989 for £20m by Sisters of Mercy.

The Sisters of Charity sold Linden Nursing Home, in Blackrock for £8m in 1998 and St Anne’s in Milltown, for £8m a few years before that.

Many religious orders have also in recent years donated land and property to charitable causes.