Christian Brothers to pay €1.8m of €6.3m redress payment

A total of €1.8m of the €6.3m owed by the Christian Brothers to redress organisation Caranua will be paid today — with the remainder to be paid in instalments by the end of the year.

It comes just two months after the Irish Examiner revealed that the Caranua fund would not have enough money to cover the cost of outstanding funding supports for abuse survivors unless it “urgently” received the money.

The dire financial situation facing the fund was revealed in more than a year’s worth of correspondence between Caranua and the Department of Education and Skills.

Caranua has now received confirmation from the department of Education and Skills that, following discussions with the congregation, a total of €1.8m of the outstanding contribution of €6.37m will be transferred to the fund today.

The Department of Education and Skills has also advised Caranua that the remainder of the outstanding contribution will be transferred to the fund in instalments before the end of December.

“Caranua expects to receive written confirmation of the schedule of future payments in the coming days,” said a statement.

In mid-July, the Christian Brothers said the payment was “imminent”, while the department assured Caranua in June that the contribution would be paid “in the coming weeks” and it had received “verbal and written assurances” to this effect.

However, this paper revealed last month that an issue had arisen in relation to the sale of land owned by the Christian Brothers at Clonkeen College in Blackrock in Dublin and that the payment was to be delayed.

The order was using the sale of the land to fund the more than €6m it owes to Caranua. As a result, the order said that “alternative financing solutions” were being examined so the payment can be made in the “near term”.

Pro-bono solicitor Fionna Fox, who represents a number of survivors who have applied to Caranua, said the payment would bring relief to survivors, but stressed that many have already endured hardshipthere was huge anger at how the issue has been handled.

“This will be a relief to the survivors whose applications were at risk, but there is also anger at the way this was handled.

After Caranua closes, the Government has decided that there is no more money available to support survivors of institutional child abuse.

"Survivors of institutional abuse face lifelong challenges and their needs have not been met. Most survivors have not received any financial support at all from either the State or the Church,” she said.

Caranua operates on the basis that the fund will have a maximum of €111.38m available to it, made up of cash contributions by the religious congregations.

However, to date, it has only received some €105.01m of this funding as the Christian Brothers still owe €6.3m.

To the end of July 2019, €88.9m had been spent on funding supports for survivors and €11.72m on operational costs.

Caranua had been expected to wind down last month after it closed for applications in August of 2018.

The department has said that “there are no plans to close the fund until the full amount of the voluntary cash contribution is received”.

The headline on this story was amended