State's legal strategy hurts and denies abused children all over again

Whatever the legal responsibility owed by religious orders to individual survivors, the State has a standalone responsibility to every one of them

It is crucial that the Government immediately complies with the rule of law and the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, and opens a fair and accessible redress scheme that — finally — provides redress to survivors. Picture: iStock

We now know that as evidence of child clerical abuse crimes percolated Irish communities in the 1990s, the Catholic Church began to divide and divest itself of many of its assets. 

We saw fresh evidence of this recently in the RTÉ Investigates documentary: Christian Brothers — The Assets, The Abusers, which was broadcast on Thursday May 1.