Religious Orders Wealth Submissions

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

jesus- would they ever just go and seize it and stop fannying around, afraid of the spell Brother Gagool might put on them.

[fluffybiscuits]

Almost a decade after the Irish Catholic church signed an indemnity deal for religious orders, just two thirds of the properties agreed on in the deal have been legally handed over to the State. The deal was originally arranged as part of the compensation agreement for Irish abuse victims. But the latest figures show that only 40 of the 61 lands and buildings agreed to in the deal had been legally transferred to the State by last month. To date, 65% of properties worth $53 million have been transferred to the State by religious orders. The agreement was originally signed on June 5, 2002. 


Correspondence from the secretary general of the Department of Education, which was reported in the Irish Examiner this week, revealed that 21 properties still remain to be fully signed over to the State. But Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee chairman John McGuinness yesterday called for an end to the dragged-out talks on the properties and said the Government needed to press Church authorities to close the deal.


Irish Central

I wonder if its possible to call in the Belgian police on this?

Why are they not issuing compulsory purchase orders for these? Use the National Development Plan to purchase the houses and then go from there. We can find some use for them

[DCon]

no cash/no assets says Quinn.

DUCATION Minister Ruairi Quinn yesterday admitted publicly for the first time that religious orders don't have the cash or assets to pay their share of the compensation bill for abuse.

And he said he had no intention of bankrupting the orders -- which leaves him facing a massive battle to recover their half of a €1.5bn bill.

In the place of previous offers, Mr Quinn now wants the orders to hand over the deeds of schools and medical facilities to finally settle the deal on compensating victims of abuse in residential institutions.

However, it may prove difficult to implement the handover of deeds as many schools controlled by the orders have been placed in trust and are no longer in the ownership of the orders.

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...l-3073838.html

[Andrew49]

It's bizarre really. The two sets of abusers (Dept. of Education and the Religious Orders) are deciding between themselves how their victims/survivors are treated. Like in the past they are now both covering each others backs. No change there.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

I'm sure Quinn is well aware, too, of the asset shifting that has been going on over the past four or five years by the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers. So when they say that the orders don't have the assets they may not have them in the old corporate set-up but there are certainly assets which have been moved to what would not be called 'other' ownership.

I'm certain that the Irish authorities know about these manouvers at the highest level. So basically the state is again running a fraud past the population on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church.

The CB (now trading as 'Emmaus' or something similar) own a large hotel for example which they pass off as a retreat centre in Dublin for tax reasons, religious properties being exempt from consideration as a commercial concern, whereas of course a hotel with substantial grounds in a good area is worth quite a few million.

The state/catholic church collusion continues in order to fool the mugs who pay for everything and this collusion is arranged between two sets of people in Irish society who routinely pay for nothing.

Fraud.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Not to mention of course the year before last a CB spokesman cocked up and released a figure of assets belonging to the CB somewhat north of 300million euro different to the officially sanctioned figure.

When journalists attempted to clarify this the CB refused to return calls. Make of that what you will.

Sooner or later these lying bastards are going to have to be dumped off the end of the national pier. And for good.

I'd be quite happy to show both these orders what rape feels like- at least in financial terms.

[Andrew49]

Despite offloading over €670 million worth of land during the property boom, the religious orders at the centre of the redress re-negotiations retained €3.1 billion in property assets. Even after two years of slumping property prices, the portfolios of the 18 congregations showed a substantial asset base when they were assessed in mid-2009. Many of these sites continue to raise revenue by selling services to the state. Three of the four orders that ran the notorious Magdalene laundries have earned €86m from the Heath Service Executive in the past five years. In a 10-year period in which an ageing and dwindling number of nuns and brothers in 17 of these orders made €676m from selling property to a frenzied market.

More here

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Are the Irish Government still planning to hand over the new national childrens hospital to the Sisters of Mercy despite that organisation still owing money to the state and being central to the scandal about pelvis cracking for jesus in Irish hospitals?

I hear Bertie Aherne, their former employee at the Mater Hospital where he was an 'LSE trained' accounts clerk promised it to them for some reason known only to himself and presumably his secretary when he was Taoiseach one Mrs Fidelma Rogers since awarded a papal medal for some also unknown reason?

Ireland is like some crappy little back of nowhere potentate in a dusty corner of Africa when measured in terms of sickening bumlickery of the degenerate church.

I suppose Biffo will be along inna minneh to assure me that Irish civil servants are 'independent' at all times and only get lucky with papal medals in some kind of lottery because the pope admires efficient civil servants.

May Croke Park collapse on Sean Brady the upright disgrace of a man. And any passing Irish civil servants on the snout for papal gongs. 'Independently'. Actually Ireland would be an embarrassment to Africa.

[Andrew49]

Seems the Irish hierarchy wanted all of the Roman Catholic Church included in the Indemnity Deal of 2002 - the RCC were even prepared to sweeten the pot by topping it up with substantial sum of money. The Fianna Fail government at the time refused to sanction it.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Suppose they couldn't. That would have been big enough to bring down a government and the RCC and its degeneracy has already accounted for one Irish Government (Albert Reynolds'?)

[Andrew49]

The assets declared by the 18 congregations had a total value of €3.743 billion (mostly based on valuations made for insurance reasons). The property declared did not include all the assets held by the congregations. The Sisters of Mercy, one of the more wealthy orders, told the panel it had land and buildings worth €1.032 billion, and financial assets (cash and investments) of €183 million. The order had liabilities and commitments of €204 million, meaning it had net assets of slightly more than €1 billion. These are its assets for the Irish Republic only. It has further undisclosed assets in Northern Ireland. As is the case with many orders, the sisters are transferring many of their assets to a trust (the Ceist/Educena Trust). The congregations are hoping these trusts, all of which will have stated objectives, will ensure the resources will continue to be used for the purposes the congregations serve after the congregations themselves have become even more diminished. The 2,088 nuns in the Sisters of Mercy in 2009 had an average age of 74, with three-quarters of the nuns aged over 65, according to the report of the three-person panel.

As well as the property, the report said the order owned 13 other bodies, most of them incorporated, which in turn held assets not included in the figures above. These assets included four hospitals – the Mater, Temple Street, and the National Orthopaedic hospitals, all in Dublin, and the Mercy University Hospital in Cork – which had insurance values of €645 million. The assets owned by the other congregations are given in the panel. The Christian Brothers had land and buildings worth €262.2 million and financial assets worth €63.2 million. In 2008 the brothers transferred school property with a value of €430 million to the Edmund Rice Schools Trust Ltd, an entity set up to continue the brothers’ work in relation to the provision of Catholic education in Ireland. Ageing orders have land and property worth billions of euro

[C. Flower]

The assets declared by the 18 congregations had a total value of €3.743 billion (mostly based on valuations made for insurance reasons). The property declared did not include all the assets held by the congregations. The Sisters of Mercy, one of the more wealthy orders, told the panel it had land and buildings worth €1.032 billion, and financial assets (cash and investments) of €183 million. The order had liabilities and commitments of €204 million, meaning it had net assets of slightly more than €1 billion. These are its assets for the Irish Republic only. It has further undisclosed assets in Northern Ireland. As is the case with many orders, the sisters are transferring many of their assets to a trust (the Ceist/Educena Trust). The congregations are hoping these trusts, all of which will have stated objectives, will ensure the resources will continue to be used for the purposes the congregations serve after the congregations themselves have become even more diminished. The 2,088 nuns in the Sisters of Mercy in 2009 had an average age of 74, with three-quarters of the nuns aged over 65, according to the report of the three-person panel.

As well as the property, the report said the order owned 13 other bodies, most of them incorporated, which in turn held assets not included in the figures above. These assets included four hospitals – the Mater, Temple Street, and the National Orthopaedic hospitals, all in Dublin, and the Mercy University Hospital in Cork – which had insurance values of €645 million. The assets owned by the other congregations are given in the panel. The Christian Brothers had land and buildings worth €262.2 million and financial assets worth €63.2 million. In 2008 the brothers transferred school property with a value of €430 million to the Edmund Rice Schools Trust Ltd, an entity set up to continue the brothers’ work in relation to the provision of Catholic education in Ireland. Ageing orders have land and property worth billions of euro

How much public funding has gone into these buildings, I wonder ?

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

They are lying their cassocks and wimples off of course. Mental reservation for this crew extends well across the holy bank account.

The christian brothers for one had an oops moment a couple of years back when one of their spokesmen released an asset figure around 300million euro in excess of what was on their paperwork and immediately went to ground and couldn't be contacted when journos started snifffing around the disparity in the figures.

They are still playing games with the description 'religious properties' as anyone who cares to look at the hotel and conference centre owned by the 'Edmund Rice' Trust will note that it is a hotel and conference centre and not a 'catholic retreat' which is right on the edge of a commercial venture and a so-called religious property. That place alone has got to be worth 50million-100million by itself in Swords considering the grounds around it.

The Sisters of Mercy are similarly shabby with their attempts to hide money behind new companies, strangely for which they have been allowed an exemption from putting the term 'Ltd' after the company name- by whom? And why, d'you think?

When they refer to religious purposes or money required for diocesan purposes what they are talking about is their retirement fund. This is nothing new to the catholic church internationally or the religious orders. I've been reading Beevor's 'Spanish Civil War' and in a description of the background to that conflict in Spain there is a description of the power and wealth of the Spanish church which is eerily reminiscent of Ireland and clearly just as feral about property and financial reserves. There is nothing new under the sun with the Irish subsidiary.

[Dr. FIVE]

digging in

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news...-29070659.html

[Andrew49]

Why doesn't Quinn want to bankrupt these supporters of child torturers? Obviously he has never been enslaved, raped, starved, or physically, sexually and mentally tortured! If Quinn has been having "ongoing contact between the Department of Education and the religious congregations" then he should publish the communications - or at least his side of the communications.

In this fight - with survivors/victims on one side and the Church & State on the other - survivors will lose.