Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Following the publication of the Ryan report, five congregations offered to transfer properties to the State and the voluntary and community sector in addition to making cash contributions.

The total value of those offers was €237 million. The Christian Brothers offered their 49 school playing fields at a value of €127 million to be transferred to a new joint trust between the State and the Edmund Rice Schools Trust, to which the congregation's primary and secondary schools were transferred. The then Minister, Deputy Quinn, had a counter-proposal that the playing fields would instead be transferred to the State, with guaranteed access for the schools currently using them under licence for as long as they were required. That counter-proposal was not accepted by the Christian Brothers. The Edmund Rice Schools Trust was also opposed to it.

In July 2013, the Government agreed to a revised proposal by the then Minister, Deputy Quinn, under which the congregation would be asked to transfer the playing fields to the trust for the continued beneficial use of the schools subject to the legal requirement that the prior approval of the Minister be obtained for a disposal of any part of them and that, in the event of any proposed transfer, the State be entitled to receive at least 50% of the proceeds. Under that proposal, in terms of reckoning that contribution towards the cost of redress, it was proposed that the fields and associated lands be valued on an open market value basis at the date of the transfer to the trust. A sum of 50% of that valuation would be reckoned as a contribution towards the cost of the response. The revised proposal was put to the congregation by the then Minister, Deputy Quinn, in a letter on 15 October 2013.

In the context of a High Court award, the congregation then undertook a comprehensive review of its capacity to meet all of its obligations, including its outstanding redress contributions. A final response to the Minister's proposal therefore was not received until 9 September 2015. In a letter of that date, the congregation stated that as the initial proposal of joint ownership was not accepted by the Minister and as his counter-proposal was not acceptable to either it or to the Edmund Rice Schools Trust, it was proceeding with the formal transfer of the sports fields to the Edmund Rice Schools Trust. The letter stated that the transfer was to complement the transfer of school properties to the trust in 2008 at an independent valuation as of the transfer date of €430 million. The letter also stated that the congregation wished to honour its pledge of investment in education and welfare for present and future generations of children in Ireland. There has been no further communication from the Christian Brothers since.

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