Restore Together Calls on Spiritan Order to End Delay in Implementation of Redress Scheme for Victims/ Survivors of Child Sex Abuse by June

28 February 2025: Following several years of advocacy on behalf of victims/ survivors of child sex abuse suffered at schools run by the Spiritan Order, Restore Together publicly calls on the Spiritans to implement a redress scheme for those who suffered child sex abuse and to do so no later than the 1st of June this year.

While Restore Together welcomes the fact that the Spiritan Order has been making payments as part of legal claims made by victims/ survivors (52 of 58 individual claims have been settled by the Order since 2022), it does not believe that any victim/ survivor should have to issue legal proceedings in order to obtain justice. Child welfare and trauma experts agree that having to bring legal proceedings to seek justice adds to the suffering of victims/ survivors, many of whom are very vulnerable.

It is not acceptable that the Spiritan Order is treating victims/ survivors who issue legal proceedings against them with greater urgency than the many who wish, in good faith and for good reason, to obtain financial recognition for the harm done to them through a redress scheme that the Order has agreed to in principle.

Since May 2021, Restore Together has been advocating for the implementation of a victim-centred, trauma-informed and non-adversarial redress scheme. Financial awards under the redress scheme should be at the same value that a court would award to a successful claimant.

The Spiritan Order has agreed to a redress scheme in principle, as one of five pillars of its Restorative Justice Programme and there have been detailed discussions over that time with the Spiritans and their lawyers about its structure, nature and implementation.

The Spiritan Order in Ireland has very significant assets which it has valued at €160 million in its accounts. This is multiple times the amount that would be needed to fully implement a redress scheme.

While it may take longer to finance the full extent of funds needed, the Spiritans have the necessary resources to commence the urgently needed redress scheme no later than 1st June this year. Further delay in the activation of a redress scheme and payment of compensation of their victims/survivors is totally unacceptable.

Restore Together has repeatedly emphasised to the Spiritan Order the urgency of providing redress to victims to help with their healing. Every week that goes by without a redress scheme being in place prolongs the suffering, and in some cases despair, of victims/survivors who have come forward in good faith having carried their burden for decades through their lives. The ongoing delay repeats and continues the sense of betrayal and abandonment first felt by victims/survivors as innocent children.

Many victims/survivors are now in the later stage of life and should not have to wait any longer for proper recognition by the Spiritans of their failure to protect the children in their care or wait for the justice to which they are entitled. Restore Together hears the heart-rending stories of victims/ survivors on a daily basis and their frustration that their pain is not being respected by the Spiritans’ continued lack of urgency in implementing all aspects of their own Restorative Justice Programme.

Restore Together believes that immediately, comprehensively and finally addressing this issue of child sex abuse must now truly be shown to be the primary mission of the Spiritans in Ireland and all of their efforts should be directed to doing so. They must direct all of their work and attention to those children who were grievously harmed by their sins as a congregation.  Their own principles and Christian teachings require the Spiritans to show true repentance and to fully atone for what they as a congregation did to these vulnerable children. Until they have done so and this enormous wrong has been fully righted by the Spiritans, without equivocation or further delay, it casts a fundamental question over their other missions and moral authority.