Fergus Finlay has called for the religious orders which ran schools in which children were sexually abused to be stripped of all assets [1] to pay compensation to abuse victims and to reduce its members to a state of poverty. He has previously called for the orders to be suppressed [2].
Speaking on RTE’s Liveline in response to the scoping inquiry report into sexual abuse at schools run by religious orders, the former Labour Party and Government Advisor said: “I want to see orders like this bankrupted [3]. The Holy Ghost fathers own hundreds of millions in assets, they can employ every legal firm in the country to protect themselves. I want to see them lose those assets and go back to the vow of poverty that they’re supposed to all have taken and I want those assets to be distributed among survivors”.
He repeated the claim on Newstalk Breakfast.
Citing, as an example, the financial worth of schools and other assets of the Spiritan (‘Holy Ghost’) congregation, he said:
“I don’t know what an order that lives by a vow of poverty needs with 157 million euro, but whatever they need, they shouldn’t have it [4]. The land, the holdings, the assets, they should be all devoted, every penny of it should be devoted towards making restitution to the people that they tortured and degraded and humiliated and abused over years and years.”
Their assets include schools such as Blackrock College [5] which would need to be sold to meet Fergus Finlay’s demand.