Canadian sex abuse victims pursue claims against Christian Brothers

THE Canadian government did not sign any special deal with the Catholic Church to compensate people who had been sexually abused in religious institutions like the State has done here.

Instead, it took the view that all victims of clerical sex abuse should be allowed to pursue their cases against the Catholic Church through the courts. However, when an avalanche of claims started going through the Canadian courts against Christian Brothers, the order pleaded inability to pay.

The Christian Brothers had set up a trust fund for all their assets and based it in Dublin, which was outside the jurisdiction of the Canadian Courts. And this is how they pleaded inability to pay.

This was revealed when a number of the Canadian abuse victims hired Irish accountancy firm KPMG to check out the nature of the trust fund and the level of the Christian Brothers’ assets.

Eventually the Christian Brothers in Canada accepted that they could pay €22 million in compensation and a large number of cases against them are still ongoing in the Canadian courts.

But the Canadian Government has not agreed to pay any part of those compensation awards.

Meanwhile, the Diocese of Dublin has set up a special fund, the Laurence O’Toole Trust Fund, to administer its assets.

And it is expected that the €300,000 settlement agreed in the High Court on Tuesday will be paid to Mervyn Rundle out of that trust fund.

There are 600 other alleged sex abuse claims against the Catholic Church pending in the Irish courts, according to the Courts Services Board.

If each of those gets around €300,000 then the Catholic Church could be facing a final bill of €500 million, according to one legal expert.

Labour’s Justice spokesman, Joe Costello, said the Catholic Church is property rich and there is no reason why they cannot sell these assets to pay the compensation bills