Shares crash cost diocese millions

BISHOP OF Killaloe Willie Walsh said yesterday that the diocese has lost millions of euro as a result of the crash in the value of bank shares.

With dividend income drying up, Dr Walsh confirmed the diocese is grappling with a €300,000 hole in its accounts to run the diocese this year.

In response, Dr Walsh confirmed that he and the diocese’s 100 priests have taken a salary cut of between 8 and 12 per cent with the diocese’s 10 full and part-time lay employees also taking a cut of between 6 and 7 per cent.

Dr Walsh confirmed that priests receive a salary of between €20,000 and €25,000. The salary cut on the diocese’s priests will result in a saving of over €200,000.

A spokeswoman for the Dublin archdiocese said a pay freeze had been imposed on all clergy and lay staff in the capital.

Dr Walsh estimated that the paper loss in the diocese’s bank shares could be up to €7 million. He estimated that before the stock market decline, the diocese’s shares were worth about €9 million. They are now worth about €2 million, which also includes a diocesan benevolent fund.

Dr Walsh said the diocese invested in the shares from the money it received in wills from individuals over the past 100 years who attached conditions to their bequests that they be used for a specific purpose or specific charity.

Dr Walsh said that the diocese was prohibited by law from giving the money away. He said: “What was done over the years was that the money was invested safely as we all believed – most of it in bank shares.”

Dr Walsh said the dividend income accounted for about one third of the diocese’s annual expenditure of €1 million.

Along with cutting salaries and budgets, Dr Walsh confirmed that the diocese’s parishes have agreed to increase their diocesan contribution from 12.5 per cent to 18 per cent of their income.

Dr Walsh said: “The Gospel never depends on finances. It is not about finance. The church isn’t going to win or lose, survive or thrive or die on the basis of money. We will survive, there are none of us going to go hungry.

“I’m not in any way looking for sympathy. There are a great deal of people out there who have invested their life savings in bank shares, hoping that it would provide a decent pension, who have lost everything. They are the people who have really, really suffered in this situation. It is really very sad for those people.”