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Religious orders under pressure to contribute to redress funding, but potential costs unknown

On a previous occasion, orders pledged half but costs spiralled and the State’s share rose

Minister for Education Norma Foley said a group of senior officials will now consider the report into abuse at schools. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
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Pat Leahy
Thu Sept 05 2024 - 06:00

As the country comes to terms with the illumination of yet another dark chapter from its past, several decisions await the Government – or more likely, say insiders, the next one – which will be closely watched by abuse survivors but will also have far-reaching financial implications for the State.

Minister for Education Norma Foley has said that a group of senior officials will now consider the report and recommend how the Commission of Investigation should proceed. Senior sources involved in preliminary discussions on the issue say the senior officials’ group will also consider the nature and scope of any redress scheme that will see victims receive compensation payments. But while few dispute the necessity for a redress scheme, there is growing alarm across Government at the potential costs that could be involved.

Some people are keen to stress that there has been no Government decision to set up a redress scheme – the decisions reached by the Cabinet on Tuesday were to publish the report and to proceed with preparations to set up a Commission of Investigation. But most senior sources accept that the redress scheme – recommended in Mary O’Toole’s scoping report – is an inevitability.

That was something the Taoiseach, speaking in Kyiv yesterday, did not contradict – he spoke as if a redress scheme was a foregone conclusion, calling instead on the religious orders to “step up” on the issue and make meaningful contributions to the cost.

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But what cost? There are all sorts of dire warnings flying around Government about what the final bill could be. One suggested it could be as much as €5 billion. But in truth, nobody knows.

Of the sources who spoke to The Irish Times, none were suggesting that victims should receive no compensation. It is clear that victims’ groups have an expectation of redress, and the Government has been careful at all stages to keep survivors on board. But several people, including some likely to be involved in the discussions, said that an estimate of the costs – not just of the redress scheme but of the Commission of Investigation too – would have to be reliable before decisions are made.

And that will be difficult. It depends on the scope of the Commission of Investigation, the numbers of people involved, the size of the redress awards and the extent to which legal costs come into play.

There is a sense in some quarters that if – as the Minister indicated she was open to – the commission’s remit was extended to all schools, then some sort of sampling process would have to be used, as it would be logistically impossible to investigate every allegation from every school in the country.

This was the approach taken the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse chaired by Mr Justice Sean Ryan, which reported in 2009. Having received about 1,700 complaints of child abuse, the commission found that to investigate each complaint to a sufficient degree to name alleged abusers would have taken up to 18 years, while the costs would have been “truly alarming”.

Some survivors criticised the sampling approach. The commission, which had a narrower remit of investigating the abuse in industrial schools and other residential institutions, took nine years to complete its work.

A redress scheme ran in parallel to the commission, and this is where there is another lesson for any new scheme. Originally estimated to cost €250 million, the scheme would eventually cost a billion euros more – with applicants’ legal costs amounting to another €200 million on top of that. The average award was €62,000; and some lawyers got very rich.

When it was set up, an agreement was struck with the religious orders to pay half of the originally estimated further costs. Crucially, though, the orders’ contribution was capped at the original estimate. The State picked up the rest of the bill.

Eventually, pressure was brought on the orders to increase their contribution. To date, they have contributed €245 million. As Simon Harris’s comments in Kyiv attest, there is a determination that this time the orders will have not just to step up, but pay up. History suggests that will be easier said than done.