Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise with the Taoiseach the issue of the Catholic orders and the redress scheme. The whole question of how these institutions were run and so on is now a major issue. According to the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Catholic religious congregations have only paid 13% of the costs of a redress scheme set up to help survivors. The report states that by the end of 2015, the total cost of the commission which inquired into child abuse and the redress scheme was an estimated €1.5 billion. However, that progress has actually gone into reverse. Some 18 religious orders have offered the equivalent of about 23% of the overall cost. I want to ask in particular about one religious order, the Christian Brothers. They said they were on course to honour all the voluntary pledges they made. Of the €34 million that they pledged, €24 million has been paid, with the final €10 million to be paid in 2017 on a phased basis, linked to property sales. The problem is that they have tried to transfer lands that they own to the Edmund Rice Schools Trust, which are their own schools. They are trying to use this transfer as part payment of their obligations under the redress scheme. Just so the Taoiseach knows, patronage of the most recent secondary school in Castleknock, in Dublin West, was awarded to this trust. People are aghast that religious congregations are being awarded hospitals and schools like it is business as usual and like nothing has happened, yet those congregations have not even fulfilled their obligations. The Sisters of Mercy are similar. Apparently I only have a minute and a half so I do not have time to go into it.

I had hoped to raise with the Taoiseach the fact that, in the 1920s and 1930s, a succession of laws were passed which gave the church control over health, education, and employment as it pertained to women. Basically, the Taoiseach's ancestors-----

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