Delays in funding exacerbates abuse

Earlier this week Taoiseach Leo Varadkar apologised on behalf of the State to people who were sexually abused in day schools. Mr Varadkar also apologised for the State’s delay in acknowledging that it had the responsibility to protect children who suffered abuse.

“The best apology we can make ... is to say that further action will now be taken... The State failed them at the time, failed them again a second time when it did not own up to its responsibility. We won’t fail them a third time.”

Welcome as that apology is it pales when viewed in the context of the State stonewalling and the extraordinary lengths Official Ireland went to make it all but impossible for victims to take a case in this sorry saga.

That Official Ireland was complicit in those scandals because it did not “record and act on allegations of sexual abuse by teachers and staff” may go some way to explaining why victims were treated so inhumanely for so very long but that does not make it acceptable.

Neither is the suggestion that the State has indicated that it may make payments in only 13 cases specifically considered by an independent assessor though there are 360 known victims. This conflict offers Mr Varadkar an immediate opportunity to give real meaning to his Dáil apology.

Today we report on another sorry saga facing victims of abuse and how very difficult it is to deliver on promises made when financial commitments are not met. Redress body Caranua has warned that it will be unable to deliver promised supports for survivors unless it “urgently” receives some €6.3m pledged by the Christian Brothers.

Last month, at a meeting with Department of Education an Skills (DES) officials Caranua was assured that money would be paid “in the coming weeks” and that it had received “verbal and written assurances” to this effect.

That, 17 years after an agreement was reached between the Catholic Church and the State, this payment has not been made is unacceptable and frustrating. When he was Education Minister Richard Bruton expressed “frustration and disappointment” at the lack of progress by the religious congregations in meeting their obligations.

“If all the offers currently on the table are delivered upon, the religious congregations will have funded 21.1% of the total cost of residential abuse, while the State will have funded 78.9%,” he added. Under the 2002 deal brokered by then minister Michael Woods those costs were to have been shared equally.

That unfortunate situation is exacerbated by the fact that DES has told Caranua that the funds had been “voluntarily pledged” and that there is “no power of compellability available to the Department in respect of those pledges”.

It was “regrettable” said DES that despite continued engagement with the Christian Brothers, the Department could not secure “any definitive commitment from them as to when the relevant outstanding amount will be paid to the Fund”.

These delays add to the abuse inflicted on those vulnerable people all those years ago and are, in any context, indefensible.

Myriad churchmen have apologised for these horrors but they need to do more, They need to pay up, immediately.