BREAKING: Religious Institutions criticised for failure to contribute to Historical Abuse Redress Scheme

Well-known Derry advocate for victims and survivors of historical institutional abuse, Jon McCourt, has heavily criticised the institutions responsible for failing to provide any redress.

“Since the first application was made to the Historical Institutional Abuse Redress Board in April 2020, not one penny has been forthcoming from any of the institutions, which in the words of Sir Anthony Hart - chair of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry - were ‘guilty of systemic failings.’”

Mr McCourt, the chairperson of Survivors North West, was speaking at Wednesday’s meeting of the Committee for the Executive Office.

The committee, which undertakes a scrutiny, policy development and consultation role with respect to the Executive Office, plays a key role in the consideration and development of legislation.

Addressing the MLA’s on the committee, Mr McCourt asked them to cast their minds back to a meeting held in Castle Buildings in 2010.

He said: “At that meeting, attended by junior ministers and Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) task force lead and staff, we were told, ‘The [religious] institutions have been put on notice to make arrangements to meet their financial obligations in the event that redress or compensation are included in the recommendations of any further inquiry.’”

Clearly exasperated, Mr McCourt added: “That was in 2010. We are now 14 years down the road. It is 12 years since the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry Legislation was passed in the Assembly Chamber. It is 10 years since the Inquiry itself opened in Banbridge. And, it is seven years since the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry released its report.

“One of the key recommendations of that report was: ‘Any voluntary institution found guilty of systemic failings should be asked to make an appropriate financial contribution to the overall cost of the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Redress Board and any specialist services’.

“Now, 14 years after the initial assurance that the ‘Institutions had been put on notice’ and with 12 months left before the Redress Board can accept its last application - in line with its five-year mandate - it has awarded in excess of £90m to Victims and Survivors of Historical Institutional Abuse.

“The Redress Board received its first application in April 2020, three months after then First Minister Arlene Foster stated: ‘I think it is incumbent on those Institutions to step forward, not only in a moral way, but indeed in terms of financial redress as well, and that is something we will continue to take up.’

“Since then, not one penny has been forthcoming from any of the institutions, which in the words of Sir Anthony Hart - chair of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry - were ‘guilty of systemic failings’,” said Jon McCourt.

According to Mr McCourt, Sir Anthony stated in the early stages of the Inquiry, it had the statutory powers to allow the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry ‘to be effective and mindful of the public purse’.

He added: “Yet to date, the total burden of redress is coming from the Public Purse, ie: the taxpayer.

“At a time when public services are stretched to capacity through lack of resources, cutbacks in the health service and particularly mental health provision on which many Victims and Survivors of Historical Institutional Abuse depend, surely it is time to press the Institutions to step up and contribute significantly to the ‘overall cost of Redress Board and any specialist services’.

“We believe we are beyond the point of asking these institutions to ‘make arrangements to meet their financial obligations’ or again asking them ‘to make an appropriate financial contribution’

“Any ‘contributions’ should not just be viewed through the fiscal lens, but should also be significantly punitive to reflect the harms done,” said Mr McCourt.

Mr McCourt accepted that some of the institutions might no longer exist.

He said: “However, many of the Institutions have the financial means to contribute. For example, The Sisters of Nazareth, who some years ago dropped the ‘Poor’ prefix from their name.

“Its ‘Annual Report 2022 to March 2023’ shows its income from investments alone totalling £561,730.

“One of two sites of former children's homes has a listed value of £1.00 according to the same report.

“Redeveloped now a residential care village built on a prime seafront site, Edgecumbe Court, Plymouth, has 45 mixed size, between one and 3 bedroom properties, which according to local estate agents rarely become available, had an original price guide of £149.000 for a one bedroom, £265,000 for a two bedroom and £520,000 for a three bedroom penthouse with sea view and terrace.

“Without doubt, the use of trusts and accountants will keep this and many other assets, including the sale of Nazareth properties in Belfast and Derry - Nazareth House in Bishop Street and Termonbacca and its 195 acres of land - from becoming part of an arrangement to ‘meet their financial obligations’, said Jon McCourt.

Mr McCourt urged the MLAs present to question the wisdom of entering into a voluntary arrangement with the institutions and agreeing at an early date to indemnify them from future costs.

He said: “This was an expensive mistake made in the 26 Counties where the cost of redress has exceeded €1.5 billion.

“In 2009, the institutions pledged €352 million in cash and assets, which they had valued at the peak of the market and which were never independently valued. They pledged a further €128 million in 2002, as part of a legally binding indemnity agreement protecting them from any future civil cases.

“Although initially agreeing to a 50/50 split, only €480 million has been realised leaving a shortfall of €270 million,” said Jon McCourt.

“This is not a situation we want to see repeated in the North,” he warned. “To suggest a voluntary contribution against an undetermined top line of the total cost of redress and future cost of specialist services, without any safeguard or penalty for default would be an act of folly.

“Read the HIA Report, Read the transcripts of the heartbreaking testimony of some of those who gave evidence to the Inquiry at Banbridge. Be reminded of what happened to vulnerable children while in the so-called ‘care’ of these institutions, and realise that what happened in these children’s homes was criminal.

“The outcome of that report shows that criminality took place. Not in isolated incidents at the hands of one or two ‘bad Apples’. This was organised and co-ordinated.

“The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry put on record something that was long suspected. In conversations with children who were in other homes run by the Sisters of Nazareth across Ireland, in England, Scotland , Australia and Canada. They had a ‘Directory and Book of Customs’ published which was distributed to every member of the Order. As well as outlining the core values of the Order of Patience, Hospitality, Love, Respect, Compassion and Justice, it also had instructions on the use of jeyes fluid For bathing; corporal punishment; severe corporal punishment such as whipping and caning. Children were to be trained to sleep with their hands across their chest to commend themselves to the Blessed Virgin.

“The Inquiry Chair reports that, ‘Even in their sleep children were to be subjected to rigorous discipline'  (SCAI Case Study No.2. 24 April to 3 July 2018. Page 19.) These were the same methods used in every one of their homes in the North,” said Jon McCourt.

Mr McCourt said taken with all of the other abuses that happened in Institutions what happened in the North was “criminal”.

He added: “Yet when I asked at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee could legal action not be taken to seize or freeze the assets of the Institutions responsible until Redress was resolved, Desmond Swain MP (Conservative) said: ‘This is absurd. We do not do Acts of attainder anymore. Ministers and politicians cannot order institutions to hand over their assets.’ That was in Westminster, July 10, 2019.

“What a strange turn of events then when, in January this year, two Conservative MP’s didn’t seem to agree with his opinion.

“Alex Chalk, Justice Secretary, said that if the statutory inquiry into the saga finds the ‘scale of the incompetence is as we might imagine’, the Government would want to ‘secure proper recompense on behalf of the taxpayer’.

“Jake Berry, former Minister of State, said: ‘There is a lot of compensation being paid out, I don’t really see why it should be the British taxpayer paying that and that’s why I’ll be calling on the Government to get Fujitsu … to stump in some of that cash.”

“There doesn’t appear to be a one size fits all in this case,” said Jon McCourt.

Mr Mc Court welcomed the news that the first meeting of the North/South Ministerial Council took place in Armagh this week.

He added: “I want this committee to know that from the 1940s until the 1960s around 30% of the children, in cases 4 or five children from one family, placed in Homes in Derry were from Donegal and sent North by welfare departments or Parish priests in neighbouring counties particularly Donegal.

“Shipped across the border, abandoned and conveniently forgotten by the State and their church. ‘De Facie, ex animo’ out of sight, out of mind.

“While the Redress process closed in the 26 Counties, they never had access to it anyway, because they were not in an institution there but here in the North.

“However, we would ask that a conversation be opened through the North/South Ministerial Council to seek recognition for those children and what they went through as a result of their involuntary displacement,” said Mr McCourt.

News awareness initiative for survivors of historical institutional abuse

'I am concerned there are victims and survivors outside of Northern Ireland who do not know about the services that are available and do not know about their right to apply for redress - Commissioner Fiona Ryan

He also asked members of the committee to remember that even when the last application for Redress has been adjudicated, and the total cost is established, the future care of Victims and Survivors will need to be met.

“Surely it is not too much to ask that all of those responsible contribute to meeting that future care.

“While many of us are in our 60s or 70s now, remember that if someone was 16 years old when they left an institution in the last year that the Inquiry covered, they would only be 44 years old now.

“Between those ‘young ones’ and us ‘oldies’ that care and ‘specialist services’ as recommended by Sir Anthony Hart will come at a significant cost over and above the total cost of redress awards.

“A cost we believe the Institutions should pay an equitable amount.”