Church redress: Time to pay up

The Catholic Church still has to pay the State more than half of the compensation money it promised to give for victims of physical and sexual abuse.

The Oireachtas public accounts committee heard yesterday that while €480m had been promised, only €227m had actually been paid over.

In fact, the true figure that should be paid by the Church is €800m as the full cost of redress now runs to €1.6bn. Under a 2002 deal struck by Fianna Fáil, the Church and State agreed to a 50:50 shouldering of responsibility for abuse.

That deal exonerated the Church from any court action being taken against it.

In March last year, Education Minister Richard Bruton said the Government would seek to put ‘moral pressure’ on the Catholic Church hierarchy to pay a fairer share of the compensation.

There is little prospect of any such pressure having any effect, considering that the Church authorities won’t even pay what they signed up to.