Church won’t hand over properties to State until summer
Lucrative properties intended to be handed over by the Catholic Church to the State by Christmas as compensation will not be released until next summer.
A Oireachtas public accounts committee labelled the situation a “joke” and warned that abusers are getting “off the hook completely” after the situation was confirmed by officials yesterday.
In a letter to the last month, the Department of Education said despite two compensation deals worth €480.6m signed with the State in 2002 and 2009, the Church has handed over less than half of the money.
Department secretary general Sean Ó Foghlú had assured the committee the majority of the remaining money and properties would be handed over in the coming months after years of delays.
However, in a subsequent letter published yesterday, the senior official clarified that the first tranche of this latest transfer, which was meant to see five lucrative buildings handed over by Christmas, will not now happen.
“Five properties remain to fully transfer under this round,” states Mr Ó Foghlú in his latest letter to the committee.
“In the update I provided to the committee in July [published last month], I indicated that it was expected that four of these properties would have fully transferred by the end of quarter three of this year. The current position is that it is likely three of the properties will have transferred by the end of the current year and a further property will transfer in the first half of 2019.”
The latest delay for abuse compensation was criticised by members of the public accounts committee yesterday, who insist that no more foot-dragging on the issue should be accepted.
Under the 2002 indemnity agreement between the government and the Church, and a similar post-2009 Ryan report voluntary contributions deal, Church authorities were meant to provide hundreds of millions of euro to victims of sustained abuse.
A total of €480.6m worth of offers were made under both schemes — €128m under the 2002 agreement and €352.6m under the 2009 deal. The funds were meant to be provided through cash payments, the transfer of land controlled by the Church, and hundreds of schools also under the oversight of the institutions.
However, of this €480.6m figure, just €253.65m — including €4.21m from the 2002 agreement and €249.44m from the 2009 deal — has been transferred to the State.
