By Jennifer Hough
Wednesday, December 23, 2009 – Irish Examiner
THE head of the Irish Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA) group has written to Taoiseach Brian Cowen calling for an inquiry into the financing of all survivor groups over the past 10 years.
In his letter, John Kelly states that, following recent revelations in the Irish Examiner on the activities of Noel C Barry and his Right of Place organisation in Cork, SOCA was alarmed at how substantial sums of public money have been used to finance such an unrepresentative group for the past 10 years.
“It is now clear that whilst receiving enormous sums of taxpayers’ money from various departments of Government Mr Barry was the happy recipient of Church largesse, the full extent of which is unknown,” he said.
In his letter, sent yesterday, Mr Kelly reminds the Taoiseach that on June 3 at Government Buildings in discussions on the matter of additional contributions from the religious orders, Mr Barry took great trouble to advise him that the Church had “contributed enough” to redressing the victims of the institutions.
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