Dublin's Catholic archdiocese has paid €4.9 million in settlements arising from child sex abuse to date, according to new figures. The figure includes legal costs.
An additional approximate €1 million has been spent in providing the diocese's Child Protection Service.
The archdiocese has also contributed €2.5 million to the Catholic Church's Stewardship Trust to date, and is expected to contribute a further €5 million to the trust over the next four years. It has received €3.7 million from the trust toward its own settlement costs.
The figures were disclosed to a meeting of the Dublin Council of Priests this week by its president, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.
He made it clear that the diocesan contribution to the trust, and the costs borne by it in both providing relevant services and covering claims, all came from funds, bequests and legacies donated to the diocese and stipulated for use at Dr Martin's discretion.
He made it clear that no money from church collections had been used in making the contribution.
The Stewardship Trust was set up by Ireland's Catholic bishops in 1996 with a total €10.6 million they received in a deal with the Church and General insurance company. Under the terms of the deal, the company was indemnified against all claims arising from clerical child sex abuse in Irish dioceses which occurred before 1996.
From 1987 as many as 23, some say 24, of the 26 Catholic dioceses in Ireland had insured themselves with the company against such claims.
Church and General became concerned at its exposure to claims during the 1990s and sought to renegotiate terms with the church.
Money accrued by the church as part of the subsequent deal was placed in a newly established trust set up to help dioceses defray costs arising from pre-1996 clerical child sex abuse. The four Catholic archbishops are the trustees.
The trust has long since used up its Church and General settlement money and is now funded by contributions from individual dioceses, some of which raise their contributions from collections.
This is expected to be discussed at the Irish bishops spring meeting in Maynooth next week.
