Insurance deals expose ‘gross dishonesty’

REPRESENTATIVES of those abused by the clergy have accused the Church of gross dishonesty and deception after it emerged that bishops negotiated insurance deals to cover compensation payments years before it acknowledged the scale of the problem.

Colm O’Gorman, of victim support organisation One In Four, said he was furious at the callousness demonstrated by the Church: “In 1987 they had enough awareness to act to protect the Church and that unveils the absolutely barefaced lie they have often repeated over the last 15 years.

“It finally exposes the Church’s real priorities and the gross dishonesty of its protestations of the past 15 years that it had little awareness or understanding of clerical sexual abuse.”

On Tuesday, a statement issued by the Bishops Conference revealed that most Catholic dioceses took out insurance policies as far back as 1987 to cover future liabilities arising from clerical child abuse.

However, the statement said serious legal difficulties arose between the Church and insurers in 1995 about the entitlement of the dioceses to indemnity payments for claims arising from clerical sexual abuse.

It is understood this dispute arose with an upsurge in the number of allegations of abuse against clerics.

Following negotiations in 1996, Church and General paid the Church 4.3 million to cover liabilities arising from before 1996. An additional and final payment of 6.3m was paid out in 1999 after further negotiations.

Each diocese then took out new policies with Church and General to cover abuse compensation payments arising from after 1996.

These policies are still being renewed on an annual basis. No payments have yet been made from them, a Church and General spokesman confirmed.

However, the 10.6m fund for pre-1996 cases, has already been significantly diminished and will not be sufficient to cover compensation payments, Bishops Conference spokesman Fr Martin Clarke said yesterday.

Mr O’Gorman said the behaviour of the Church in protecting itself before victims amounted to gross individual failure on the part of the hierarchy and the Church in general: “This shows they always acted to protect their wealth.

"It demonstrates the bare-faced contradiction of the Church which, while publicly talking about support and compassion for victims, was all along just acting to protect its own interest.

"The Church has always acted to protect its own interest. The public face of showing any level of compassion is now totally unmasked.”

John Kelly of support group Irish Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA) renewed a call for the resignation of Cardinal Connell: “This situation is completely at odds with statements and pronouncements over the past four years that the Church was unaware of the extent of abuse by priests throughout Ireland,” he said, comparing the behaviour of the cardinal and Church to an insurance loss adjuster.

Mr O’Gorman said the Church had continually fought compensation cases in a callous manner showing no regard for the victims concerned.

“As an institution, it remains wholly unconcerned about the devastating impact that this approach continues to have on victims of abuse, their families and on the Church itself,” he said.

Fr Clarke and Church and General, last night declined to comment as to why the original insurance deal to cover abuse payments had been renegotiated.

Both parties also refused to reveal how much existing policies are worth.

However, a spokesman for Church and General said all its combined dealings with all Church policies, including abuse-centred policies, accounted for less than 1% of the company’s business.

Church and General said it would be happy to co-operate with any State inquiry that sought reasons for the renegotiation of its original policy covering abuse payments.

Fr Clarke said criticism of the Church was not justified, since it had specifically put the insurance policies in place to allow for compensation payments to victims:

"There is a difference between awareness and understanding. People were not aware of the issue of abuse to some extent in the 1980s, but the understanding of it is something that has grown over the last 16 years.

"The more an understanding of the damage caused to the victims became clear the more the church has responded to that.”