Redress proposals for abuse survivors by the Spiritan congregation, which runs Blackrock College and other leading schools in Ireland, “urgently needs to be substantiated by actions”, survivors’ group Restore Together has said.
It represents people who were sexually abused at Spiritan-run schools.
Group spokesman Philip Feddis said “urgent delivery of a victim-centred, non-adversarial redress scheme is critical”.
Ongoing delays on the order’s part are “undermining the benefits of what has been delivered to date”, he said.
His comments follow a public commitment by Spiritan Provincial Fr Brendan Carr to pay redress to survivors of abuse in the schools.
By last November, 359 survivors of abuse at Spiritan schools had come forward, including the 347 disclosed in the scoping inquiry report on abuse at private fee-paying schools published last September.
In an open letter on Monday to survivors of abuse by members and employees of the Spiritans, Fr Carr announced “a restorative framework which we hope can help all to arrive at a different place in this painful and difficult journey”.
This, he said, was prepared “with the help of Restore Together, One Voice, and other significant advocates and individuals who were abused in our schools and other contexts, who have engaged directly with us”.
Fr Carr said the Spiritans have established a “finance advisory team, with the expertise to lead a strategic restructuring of the Province’s assets”. It would “fast-track the development of sustainable funding streams, including immediate and medium-term provisions for redress”.
He hoped that by the end of this summer he could “provide a further, more detailed update of the progress we are making in forging new paths to create a just redress scheme”.
In response, Mr Feddis said “victims/survivors will judge the statement based on actions and how soon they receive restorative justice in its entirety”. He stated that a redress scheme is the “most urgent and important element”.
Delivery of a full restorative justice programme by the Spiritans is “already long overdue”, Mr Feddis added.
The order’s “ongoing delays” undermine what has been delivered to date – an apology and therapy – and “diminishes the potential for restorative justice to have full effect for victims/ survivors”, he said.
Victims and survivors must have “active decision-making input” in determining what is best for their healing, Mr Feddis said, adding that “justice delayed is justice denied, and that is where we are at”.
He said Restore Together will work intensively with the Spiritans to address how the three inactivated elements of the programme can be “enabled as soon as humanly possible”.
