EITHNE DONNELLAN
GROUPS REPRESENTING survivors of abuse in industrial schools have warned the Government it must not allow the verification of the financial standing of religious congregations to become a lengthy affair.
The verification concerns those congregations which promised further redress to victims following the publication of the Ryan report in May.
Following a meeting of the groups in Dublin yesterday, John Kelly of Irish Survivors of Child Abuse said the Government was prepared for a “long drawn-out process” with the religious to establish their assets and to determine what could or could not be released to the victims.
But he warned victims would not stand for that. “We are saying to the Government they need to be more robust and they need to be more urgent about what needs to be done,” he said.
The Government appointed a three-person panel at the end of last month to assess the statements of resources submitted by religious congregations following publication of the Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse.
The panel, chaired by Frank Daly, former chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, has no specific deadline.
Michael O’Brien of Right to Peace and a former mayor of Clonmel, who spoke movingly about the abuse he suffered at Ferryhouse industrial school near the town, said it was of “serious concern” that the panel had no deadline by which they would have to report.
“This should take a matter of weeks rather than months. It’s a matter of serious concern that they have no timeframe because we have endured 10 years of waiting and suffering for all this to come to an end.
“We want to see this coming to an end soon so we may get closure, which is very important to us all,” Mr O’Brien said.
“I call on the Taoiseach to put a timeframe on it now.”
Mr Kelly said that he was anxious to ensure the panel had real teeth and was able to go after offshore assets held by the religious orders.
A Government spokesman said later that the three-person panel would complete its work “as soon as practicable”.
Work on the issue was continuing apace.
With Mr Daly on the panel are Catherine Treacy, chief executive of the Property Registration Authority, and John Donnelly, former chairman of Deloitte and Touche.
Meanwhile, the survivors’ groups also said any future financial contributions that may be forthcoming from the 18 religious orders who were party to the 2002 redress agreement with the State should first and foremost be used to give proper direct redress to victims and not go into central exchequer funds.
Only after that, they said, should any sort of trust fund be established with whatever surplus funds may be available to address other needs.
The Irish Times 17th August 2007
Mr. Kelly claimed at a recent press conference that he had “thousands of e-mail’s” supporting Irish SOCA. When I asked him to show those e-mails, he left the room. I pointed out to Minister Barry Andrews that there he as a Government minister should be careful about who he held meetings with. I made it clear as did other people at that press conference that Mr. Kelly and IRISH SOCA did not speak for me nor did they ever seek a mandate or obtain a mandate from anyone who had been abused while in the care of religious orders or the Irish State. To be as presumptuous as Mr. Kelly is must surely rank as arrogance in the extreme.
I’d be much more interested in seeing a timeframe/timeline representing the contradictory statements of Mr Kelly. He excoriated survivors who’s input made the Ryan Report possible – indeed he urged a boycott of Laffoy/Ryan yet he would be pleased to have his input included in a secret, in-house Vatican inquiry into the abusing Religious Orders !!!! You go ahead Mr Kelly and support any inquiry by the ‘Holy See’ – in the meantime the Ryan Commission Report belongs to us and you should butt out and stop feeding off us!
Mr Kelly said on May 20 2009:
“Now that the Ryan commission is finished we call upon Pope Benedict to convene a special consistory court to fully investigate the activities of Catholic religious orders in Ireland. Among other things, such a court could establish the whereabouts of Irish state assets that were misappropriated over many years by the religious orders and make restitution to the Irish state exchequer.”
[ Source: http://tinyurl.com/onlwal ]
Why should the State Exchequer receive restitution? The exchequer is part of the same State that abused us!
Should the Department of Education also receive restitution ? After all the monies the Religious Orders received from this dept. were also misused!
Is Mr Kelly about to start a campaign in support of restitution for State bodies – is he advocating a ‘Redress Scheme’ where the Religious Orders compensate State bodies?
The mind boggles!
Church and State are partners in crime, and have been for a long time since the Roman Church ordered the British to keep control over the Irish (sheep)
The Irish people have let their abused brothers and sisters down badly.
All over the world we waited and watched to see if the Irish people would still darken the doors of the Catholic churches and place money in the baskets for Rome.
I thought the Irish people would do us proud and the empty baskets would speak volumes in a quiet protest, but I was wrong, as sadly the irish people are too brainwashed as sheep and unable to think for themselves and support their injured brothers and sisters.
People of Eire- You failed the test.
Shame on you as a collective people.
Brehon Law needs to be brought back to show how Justice is delivered and how important HONOUR is.