The Government will carry out a financial assessment of church assets with a view to pressuring the religious orders [1] in talks on reparations for former mother and baby home residents. Mother and baby homes existed in many countries with only a small minority in the English-speaking worth being run by Catholic organisations. None have reparation schemes specifically for mother and baby homes.
Last May, a special Government negotiator, Sheila Nunan, took control of the talks after Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman failed to reach a deal with eight Catholic congregations and the Church of Ireland. A Church of Ireland body ran Bethany home.
With talks at an impasse, Ms Nunan has told the congregations she will engage financial experts to examine their assets.
While the Department of Children had nothing to say about the mandate for the financial assessment, the Irish Times reports that the aim is to examine what payments individual orders could sustain in any deal.
While most church bodies had no comment on the talks, a figure linked to a congregation said the orders knew little about the looming financial assessments other than it exists.
The latest effort to advance talks with church bodies comes more than two years after drug company GlaxoSmithKline ruled out making reparation payments for clinical trials on mother and baby home children between 1934 and 1973.