INSTITUTIONS and religious orders involved in historical sex abuse in schools will be “held accountable” for the “awful” crimes, the Education Minister has vowed.
The Government approved the establishment of a commission of investigation into allegations of historical sex abuse in schools across the country.
The minister vowed that those responsible for the crimes will be held accountable[/caption]
Mr Justice Michael McGrath will chair the commission.
Minister for Education Helen McEntee, who outlined the details of the commission of investigation, said that any redress scheme would have to be funded by the religious orders and organisations.
Speaking at Government Buildings on Tuesday, Ms McEntee said that more works needed to be done to establish exactly what is owned and in the possession of the religious orders.
The scoping inquiry found some 2,395 allegations of sexual abuse in day and boarding schools run by religious orders, involving 884 alleged abusers in 308 schools across the country, between 1927 and 2013.
Most of the allegations were reported from the records of some 42 religious orders.
The commission will examine the handling of allegations, suspicions and concerns of sex abuse in schools, failure to treat concerns, causes and responsibility for such failure, failure to prevent harm, and the concealment of child sex abuse.
Ms McEntee said work is ongoing around how such a redress scheme would work, but said that it must be funded by religious orders and any other school organisations “involved in these awful crimes”.
The Fine Gael minister said it will take five years to complete, at a cost of tens of millions of euros.
She said the Government was examining a number of ways to make this happen, including making legislative change.
Ms McEntee said that any steps to secure or maximise payment for a redress scheme is being worked on by the Attorney General.
She explained: “It is important to stress that the preferred outcome here is that religious institutions and organisations would come forward.
“(The process) will be anonymised, and it will mean that every single person who wishes to come forward to tell their story, to tell what happened to them, in that non-adversarial way that they would be able to do so, and it will allow all survivors to do this.”
She added: “The work that is happening in parallel is further examination of the religious orders, what funds they have, what assets they have, what levers may be used by government to ensure that funding is provided by those religious groups and orders.”
