Ireland seeks more Catholic cash for sex abuse victims

Ireland wants another €200 million from the Roman Catholic Church towards the compensation bill for clerical sex abuse victims, Prime Minister Brian Cowen said yesterday.

Mr Cowen said the money was being sought from 18 religious congregations so that they would pay half of a huge compensation bill - with taxpayers paying for the other half.

Last year a judicial report found that for decades thousands of children suffered physical and sexual abuse in schools, orphanages, hospitals, reformatories and other childcare institutions run by the congregations.

Mr Cowen said it was estimated that the cost of the judicial inquiry and the compensation bill for a government Residential Institutions Redress Board (RIRB) scheme for 14,500 victims would be about €1.36 billion.

In 2002 the congregations said they would pay €128 million and earlier this year they pledged another €348 million in cash and property.

Mr Cowen said the objective was for the state and the church to meet the bill on a 50:50 basis which meant just over €200 million "that would need to be further provided".

"We need to engage with them (the congregations) as to what further contribution could be made because we believe the objective of 50:50 would be a fair distribution of the costs.

"They have indicated their willingness to work constructively with the government on these matters," Mr Cowen told lawmakers.

Mainly Roman Catholic Ireland has been rocked by a serious of clerical sex abuse scandals involving widespread abuse and cover-ups by church authorities.