“I EXPECT PEOPLE who speak Christianity, to practice it in terms of how they respond to the situation,” Taoiseach Simon Harris said today when questioned about how the government will ensure religious orders pay their fair share in redress to sexual abuse survivors. 

A report published last week into sexual abuse in schools run by religious orders has identified 308 schools where the alleged abuse took place.

In total, the inquiry found 844 alleged abusers in schools run by 42 religious orders, amounting to nearly 2,400 allegations of sexual abuse.

Asked by The Journal about the shortfall in redress religious orders have paid following other scandals in the past surrounding abuse and whether this government will take a tougher stance with the Catholic Church, the Taoiseach said: 

I would encourage organisations that consider themselves to be Christian to act in the values of Christianity.

Asked directly about whether compulsory purchase orders of property and land owned by the Catholic Church could be used if orders fail to pay their fair share, Harris said:

“We are the sovereign government of Ireland. Of course we have levers at our disposal. The Government of Ireland, the Oireachtas in Ireland, of course, can take action, of course. Lessons must be learned from the past when, quite frankly, the Church was let off the hook, let’s be honest, was let off the hook.

“The taxpayer was put on the hook. The Church was let off the hook. But I don’t think today would be helpful to wade into what those levers look like.”

He said the report does say redress must be a part of the next step and states religious institutions and organisations must contribute to that redress.

As the process is only beginning, Harris said he didn’t want to begin by using “adversarial language” and would rather see the religious orders enage of their own accord.  

He said the report “shines a real light on a terrible time in our past that is having a real impact on people in their present lives”, stating that for many, their lives have been put on hold or have been destroyed.

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‘Collective sense of shame’

He added:

There should be a collective sense of national shame that people knew. People clearly knew. I mean the scale of this, the numbers, people knew, lots of people knew.

The Taoiseach said the most important thing that needs to happen now is to listen to the survivors and to get the structure of the next step right.

“I’ve heard the survivors talk about that very clearly. Sometimes with issues in the past, we’ve gotten this correct, collectively as a country, sometimes we’ve gotten it badly wrong. And I know the worry that a lot of the survivors have, and I’ve heard them say this publicly, is that you set up a process that goes on and on and on and on and on and doesn’t provide those answers,” he said. 

Harris said there are big questions the government need to get right, “and we need to have the confidence of the survivors in what that model is”.