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THE SALE OF 7.5 acres of a school’s playing pitches by the Christian Brothers to pay for their sex abuse redress has been condemned.
There has been significant opposition from local reps, parents and the school’s board of management to the sale of the lands at Clonkeen College in Deansgrange, south Dublin.
The land, which is expected to have fetched around €18 million, has been zoned for housing since 1998, making it a desired target for developers.
The news has been condemned by locals and school officials. They said a lot of money has been put into the school’s facilities and that the strategy for the next 10 years revolved around keeping the fields.
Speaking following the publication of a parliamentary question answer by Education Minister Richard Bruton , confirming the sale, Dún Laoghaire councillor Cormac Devlin said he was extremely disappointed by the news and that allowing this to happen will have a detrimental impact on the community.
He said: “The Department of Education and Skills is currently engaged in negotiations with the Christian Brothers Congregation surrounding the transfer of up to €127m worth of property to discharge their obligations to the Redress Scheme.”
“It is very disappointing the Minister allowed this sale to proceed. Just last week, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council debated the issue, agreeing a cross party motion calling on the Minister to intervene and retain this land for educational and recreational use.”
The sale of this land was unnecessary. This land should not have been sold. Essential school lands must be safeguarded for future generations.
Devlin added that the department is currently seeking land in Dún Laoghaire for a new Educate Together school. He said that if it were constructed at Clonkeen, the new school could have shared facilitates with the college and secured the future of the sports pitches.
He added: “The Minister should clarify whether the sale is “subject to planning or zoning” so we can know, even at this late stage, if the deal can be reversed.”
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‘THE SALE OF 7.5 acres of a school’s playing pitches by the Christian Brothers to pay for their sex abuse redress has been condemned’
These people believe they shouldn’t pay compensation?
@Mark DeFriest: here is an idea – how about sell all the family sized homes owned by the religious orders. There are millions in value with single retired clergy living in them. Many of whom were personally responsible for the debt that needs to be paid off. Probably fairer than selling pitches out from under the schools.
@Melissa O’Callaghan:
Not all of the priests are guilty and some are very good people. Where do you propose these people live?
@Mark DeFriest: how about the very rich Vatican pay for their pervert employees misdemeanours
@Nick Allen: no but why do they need so many single occupancy housing when they have so much debt?
@Phil Keenan:
I like that idea, it sounds like a sensible suggestion. Or even why not sell some churches, they would make great nightclubs or office building or even level them and build some houses. They are generally in prime locations
@Phil Keenan:
The orders are run as separate entities. Technically it would be more correct for the state to pay as the Irish education system was under their control.
@Melissa O’Callaghan:
Melissa, many of these retired clergy dedicated their lives to education in Ireland without any remuneration in return saving the state tens of billions down the years. They live out their lives in simplicity often with little more than board and keep.
It’s the least they should be afforded.
@Mark DeFriest: did I miss something, or was the board of redress set up for a reason?
@Mark DeFriest: the sale price of the proposed land sale is €26million, the amount going to the redress board is €8.8milliom
@Melissa O’Callaghan: I also think that is a great idea. Our local priest was a bloody nice bloke but lived in a 3 bed house for years on his lonesome. He would have been just as happy in an apartment I’m guessing.
@Melissa O’Callaghan:
You didn’t miss something, you are just avoiding the point being raised
@Sean: if the religious order is cash poor and asset rich, then I guessing they haven’t spent much on these houses. The Nuns in Glasnevin have the right idea with buying / building a apartment complex that is single flats grouped together and a shared altar for collective prayer. They are warm and modern apartments that are more appropriate for single occupancy. There really are a huge amount of houses in our communities that could be sold ahead of selling out generations of children and having the added bonus of freeing up family sized houses.
@Melissa O’Callaghan: Or just sell their PALACE in Drumcondra!! Would also pay a big chunk of what they owe. This should be seized from them byCAB
Next one is olg primary and secondary school in goatstown the sisters of mercy have sold land to durkin homes as well and we will lose after care and Montessori as well as playing pitches
@Dermot Stapleton: all in the name of “redress” = compensation = money.
How about prosecuting the offending individual and liquidating his/her assets for monetary loss has occurred as a result of the event. Of course monetary payment will not undo damage caused by many abuses but legal teams aren’t really out for justice.
I am sick of every lobby group plundering tax paying citizens with the blessing of politicians out to secure votes.
Could the land not have been bought by the state and used for housing?
@Thomas O’ Donnell: could it f£#%k, you won’t get those types anywhere near these areas. Better off in the mun or finglas.
@Thomas O’ Donnell: because they are school pitches not surplus land. The developers just want green field sites in maximum return areas. Nothing to do with helping out with the housing crisis and if you think otherwise then you ate naive.
@robbie: corrections they were institutional zoned land with limited conditional residential zoning value. Someone has to be held accountable for creating so much value for these institutions by systematically rezoning to residential and putting schools at risk.
@Melissa O’Callaghan: well it’s hardly the Christian Brothers fault. They’ve been asked to liquidate their assets to pay €€€m. They have sought to maximise the value of these assets to pay their dues. State bodies grant planning and rezoning applications, not Bishop Diarmuid Martin. The land was rezoned nearly 20 years ago. Has nobody concerned now known anything about this in the interim period? The church and state should co-operate and agree land/asset deals with appropriate risk/adverse impact assessment measures.
@Sean @114: if they were really sincere about selling to pay off their redress debt then do something good with the money. I don’t think giving the pensioned priest each a lottery win counts.
@Sean @114: this was done 20 years ago! That is what I call forward planning. So basically they have been planning to off load the schools assets for 20 years so it has NOTHING to do with the Redress Board but just plain old greed. Thanks Sean for clarifying.
@Melissa O’Callaghan: are you saying that nobody, nobody at all, in the concerned state bodies, school board of management etc etc knew anything about this rezoning over the past two decades? I’m sorry but I find that impossible to believe! Do something good with the money? They are paying millions into the redress fund! If they didn’t, you’d be calling for them to be lynched. You simply cannot smear the many with the sins of the few. Most of them have lived life on relatively low income and have no private pension bounty to fall back on I suspect. Are the very high percentage who did not abuse, not entitled to retire with some financial comfort after a lifetime of service or are they all to be smeared as sex abusers and force poverty on them?
@Mark DeFriest: No one is saying the Christian Brothers shouldn’t pay, in fact they have other assets they could use.
This arrangement is passing the burden onto the school and boosting their cash reserves at the same time
@TJH_2014:
Precisely….. What atonement are the Christian Brothers prepared to make for their sexual and physical abuses in the past ? What suffering or deprivation are they willing to undergo ? Answer – none. They decide to deprive hundreds of students of their playing fields instead and try to pass this off as a magnanimous gesture on their part to make redress. And, of course, having paid the redress money they will pocket a neat €10 for themselves. Hypocrites that Edmund Rice would be ashamed to call his successors.
@Jim Byrme:
€10m, of course
The church has enough cash to pay it off. I know they have running costs , by local church on Saturday evening it took in just under 5 k from the collection.
Well if the church treats the schools as business maybe they should be applying their own business strategies to your church.
I grew up in the catholic education system. The main fault in my view, was the error of not allowing mothers from the community to care, mother and nurture the children. The brothers in the main were severe in their duty of punishment with the black leather straps. The children were harmed emotionally and physically by such acts of child abuse. The guilt of Ireland lay in the crime of Omission. We are st ill reaping what these cruel men and women of the Ash Black cloth. All the ointment of the East, cannot erase the mental damage, done by a Church acting in the Name of The Savior of Children. Woe betide any Clergy who enters eternity with uncontested crime against these little ones.
I thought we were metric now. 3 hectares seems far less annoying than 7.5 acres
@Chef Harold: 3 hectares or 7.5 acres either way sound abstract but a full sized GAA pitch is massive and then add the size of a Rugby and Soccer pitch to it and I guessing you are very close to that size. Or at least I hope so or else the school would have to drop at one sport.
If the school’s land is cut back to only these pitches and land developed for residential then you create a demand in the future for the school to expand. If there is no spare land then again you would have to look at which sport to drop. Are you saying only urban fee paying schools are allowed to play Rugby or country schools allowed to play GAA because these will be the choices schools will have to make if developers are allowed to salivate over google earth working out their acreage or hectares.
Can anyone trace how this religious order came to have possession of this, & indeed how extensive lands fell into religious control?
Surely there is a provable public or parish interest in this site, & other lands?
I thought that the bould Henry the eight seized all Church property for the State, so what happened to these statutes?
& since the Catholic Church has incurred enormous legal & ongoing compensation costs can we just not seize these lands to bring this saga to an abrupt close?
Would have been idle for a green field halting site and encourage social inclusion at the school and larger community. Now there will just be small densely houses/apartments at obnoxious prices.
Sold out to the devil
Its time for the state to buck and have CAB seize lands from this criminal sect. They can start with their PALACE in Drumcondra. Its time for the state to get out of bed with Rome.
they should leave land for one playing pitch, if there isnt another one very close to the school that could be used…
@Shane Zerbe: which sport would you choose? I suppose soccer is the smallest pitch so best go with that. A local park might have a GAA and / or rugby pitch so you could use them but then you would run into insurance problems and require their pitches to be fenced in so you have use of it. In time the schools owner could claim the public land for the school and the I guess sell it off as they might have some spurious excuse to justify their greed. GENIUS! Do you know any good developers or would you have to via the Education Ministry to get a number?
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