Ireland's 4.088 million Catholics are set to pay €26.5 million over five years as a result of clerical child sex abuse in the island's 26 dioceses.
The figure amounts to €6.25 for every Catholic man, woman and child on the island and is extrapolated from financial details released by eight of the dioceses to date.
It follows a decision in 2003 by the Catholic bishops to levy every diocese, according to its Catholic population, an amount payable to their central fund for dealing with all matters arising from such abuse.
The levy, which was not publicly announced at the time and was not revealed until last month, took effect in November 2003. It is calculated per capita on the basis of the Catholic population of each diocese.
Repeated queries to the Catholic Communications Office in Maynooth over recent weeks have failed to elicit what the annual levy is per diocese, but a spokesman agreed it was valid to extrapolate what may be due from each diocese, by calculating from the financial details released by some. This methodology was also assented to as valid by two bishops who spoke to The Irish Times yesterday.
The levy from each diocese goes to the Church's Stewardship Trust, which was set up in 1996 with a €10.6 million settlement arrived at between the bishops and the Church and General insurance company. Under the settlement terms the company was released from all liability for claims arising from clerical child sex abuse in the dioceses since 1987 - when the insurance was put in place by almost all the dioceses - to 1996.
By 2003 it was clear the amount of money in the Stewardship Trust was becoming depleted, and the Irish Bishops Conference decided each diocese should contribute to the trust, for a five-year period initially, in a tradition of solidarity.
At their meeting last week, following which the bishops released details of spending by the trust to date, they also decided each diocese would undertake a process of consultation to find ways to raise this money over the remaining four years of the current agreement.
To date, only one diocese has admitted it continues to raise money for the trust through collections at Masses - that is the diocese of Dromore, which covers parts of counties Antrim, Down, and Armagh. The same practice was stopped in Derry diocese last month following protests.
The remaining seven dioceses which have publicly disclosed their contributions to the trust - Armagh, Dublin, Galway, Cork and Ross, Limerick, Clogher, Down and Connor, - have all indicated they did so either from investments, from donations and bequests, or from the sale of some property.
However, it is clear through last week's statement from the Irish Episcopal Conference that these sources are also now depleted, with every indication that, in the near future, the people in each Catholic parish on the island will be approached for contributions to help fund the trust's spending.
The trust covers compensation, legal costs, and services to victims arising from clerical child sex abuse in parishes/dioceses.
It does not apply to people who were abused in residential institutions run by religious congregations. These latter may secure compensation by going before the State's Residential Institutions Redress Board, or by going to the courts.
