Christian Brothers’ legal strategy is a form of ‘secondary abuse’, says Dublin lord mayor

The Lord Mayor of Dublin has written to the head of the Christian Brothers in Ireland saying the legal strategy being pursued by it when being sued by alleged victims of child abuse is a form of “double and secondary abuse”.

The letter follows a vote of the council at its April meeting and recent media coverage of the strategy being pursued by the order whereby it is choosing not to put forward a nominee to act for the Brothers for the purposes of litigation in the civil courts.

As a consequence, litigants alleging historic cases of child abuse are having to sue each surviving member of the order from the time of the alleged abuse. Among other difficulties, the litigants have to go to court to get an order from the Christian Brothers directing it to provide the litigant with a list of the surviving members and their addresses, so they can be individually served with legal papers. In one recent case, the claimant was provided with a list of more than 100 brothers.

[ Christian Brothers ‘mistreating’ elderly members by failing to appoint nominee for legal actions ]

Other religious orders being sued in cases of alleged sexual abuse are choosing to put forward a nominee for the purposes of the case. Doing so does not affect an order’s ability to contest any claims that are made in a particular case.

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In her letter to the Provincial Leader of the Christian Brothers, Bro David Gibson, Lord Mayor Caroline Conroy said the issue had been debated at the April meeting of the council after which members asked that she write to him to convey their “upset” at the strategy being adopted by the order’s leadership.

She said the council members were also calling on the order to instruct one firm of solicitors who would act for all the members of the order in a particular case, without impacting the defence of any action.

“This will remove the unjust burden being placed on elderly members of the congregation as well as expediting justice for the many victims.”

The motion about the Christian Brothers was brought by independent councillor Damian O’Farrell, who successfully sued the Christian Brothers in a sex abuse case prior to the order’s adoption of its current legal strategy.