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Order offers €128m to abuse victims

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Order offers €130m to abuse victims
A leading order of Catholic nuns has offered €128m to compensate child abuse survivors.

The Sisters of Mercy, who were in charge of Goldenbridge, Dublin, will donate €20m in cash and €108m worth of property to charities and the state.

Money will also support counselling services.

The move by the Sisters of Mercy follows the publication last week of the Murphy report into the abuse of children in the Dublin Archdiocese.

The damning investigation revealed three decades of abuse and cover-ups by the Catholic Church and senior police officers.

The Congregation, exposed along with 17 other orders for imposing physically and psychologically abusive regimes in state-run institutions, said the offer was an attempt to be faithful to values of reparation, reconciliation, healing and responsibility.

'Reparation'

"It is the sincere hope and desire of the Congregation that this contribution will help towards the enhancement of the lives of former residents", the Sisters said.

The Murphy report said the hierarchy knew the sex abuse scandals would cost the Church dearly.

According to the report, the Archdiocese was pre-occupied until the mid-1990s with maintaining secrecy, avoiding scandal, protecting the reputation of the Church and preservation of assets.

All other concerns, including the damage done to young victims, came second, it said.

Eighteen orders were also criticised in the Ryan report last May for running abusive regimes on children in schools, reformatories, borstals, orphanages and convents.

Belfast victim Margaret McGuckin, who was abused as a child by nuns while growing up in Nazareth House on the Ormeau Road, has welcomed the offer by the Sisters of Mercy.

"It's long over-due, after all this length of time and after everyone being in denial that these things happened," she said.

"I do hope that all the religious orders come on board too and pay out and do whatever needs to be done in these cases."

Last week the Christian Brothers offered €161m for abuse suffered at the hands of its priests.

© UTV News

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