Institutions must honour Ryan {child abuse ireland}

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http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/0712/1224300557802.html

THE FIVE-VOLUME Ryan report into child abuse in residential institutions run by 18 religious congregations in the State, which took ten years to complete, has produced some deeply disappointing responses since its publication in 2009.

To date no one has faced prosecution arising out of the contents of the report. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has ruled out prosecution in eight of the 11 abuse case files that he has received, while decisions are still awaited in the remainder. Just as disappointing, and much less explicable, has been the tardy response of the religious congregations to paying their share of compensation costs and reparation payments to victims of clerical sexual abuse who once were in their care.

The Ryan report recommended that the congregations concerned should pay half the total redress costs for the abuse victims – or some €680 million – with the taxpayer contributing the remainder. But so far the payment offered by the congregations has fallen well short of the required amount. Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn last weekend again put the shortfall at “several hundred million” euro, insisting it was not his intention to bankrupt the orders, only that they should contribute their fair share. But despite the State’s call on the congregations to increase their offers, the Minister has said “only two out of the 18 congregations have replied positively”. None of the rest, it seems, have done so.

Mr Quinn has now sought a meeting with the congregations while the Government has indicated it will adopt a much tougher negotiating stance, and will press the congregations to transfer ownership of schools to the State to make up the shortfall in their 50 per cent contribution to the €1.36 billion overall cost of the redress bill.