Christian Brothers leader demands prosecutions for child abusers

A senior Christian Brother leader today backed growing demands for criminal prosecutions against those responsible for decades of child abuse in church-run schools.

Brother Edmund Garvey, the congregation’s communications director, also called for religious orders who ran to so-called industrial and reformatory schools to offer more compensation to victims.

The Christian Brothers, one of the main orders disgraced by the Ryan report, was “revisiting” its obligations to survivors of the endemic sexual, physical and emotional brutality, he said.

“I believe that the processes of the law and the processes of the State and of the legal system must be used to bring people to justice who have perpetrated criminal actions against children,” he told BBC Radio Ulster.

Brother Garvey said he would encourage any abuse survivors or witnesses to contact the Gardaí.

He insisted an indemnity clause in the controversial 2002 compensation deal struck between the Government and 18 religious orders did not mean rapists and abusers could not be prosecuted.

A Christian Brother for almost five decades, Brother Garvey said he never witnessed any sexual abuse or ritual violence against children by his colleagues.

Sister Elizabeth Maxwell, who acted as negotiator on behalf of the 18 religious congregations in the 2002 deal, insisted it was not a mistake.

However, the former Conference of Religious of Ireland (Cori) secretary general accepted there may have been a different deal if people had known then the true scale of the abuse.

“I think it may be inadequate in light of new information that has come out before us in the Ryan report,” she said.

The deal brokered by then Education Minister Michael Woods for the religious orders to hand over cash, assets and services worth €127m has come under intense criticism.

The payout by the orders was one 10th of the €1.3bn redress bill being paid by the taxpayer.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen is to meet with survivors and former residents of the church-run institutions on Wednesday.

A day later he will hold talks with the 18 congregations which ran the institutions.

Last Thursday, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern urged all victims and those who had any information on abuse in the schools to contact the Garda.

Their co-operation could be critical in helping to bring charges against those responsible, he insisted.

Mr Ahern made the call as President Mary McAleese backed the criminal prosecution of the perpetrators, among them priests and nuns.