Greg Daly
Most Dublin parishes are struggling to stay afloat and many are not sustainable in the long term, The Irish Catholic understands. It comes after the publication of the first of two sets of accounts the diocese will issue this year bringing unprecedented financial transparency.
A source told The Irish Catholic that based on current figures “many parishes look unsustainable going forward”. The source added that while figures in the recent census are in many respects very encouraging, “the reality on the ground is that numbers are shrinking in terms of Mass attendance”.
This is having repercussions in terms of collection figures, as the latest diocesan accounts show, with the annual Share collection, which raised over €8.5m in the financial year ending June 30, 2009, raising little more than €10m over the 18 months to December 31, 2015. Parish family offerings similarly dropped over the period, from over €16m in 12 months to just over €20m in an 18-month period.
More broadly, changes in charity regulation will mean that traditional parish secretaries may need to be supplemented by parish managers, capable of handling standardised parish accounts and complying with complex financial regulation.
Not viable
“There are 199 parishes in the Archdiocese of Dublin, but going forward from many different perspectives, a lot of parishes are simply not viable,” the source said, continuing, “We have to spend the money that we have in a very prudent way, and this raises a number of questions in terms of what will the shape of parishes be going forward, how will they be structured in the sense of staffing, and who is going to pay for staffing?”
The Irish Catholic understands that financial pressures may force groups of parishes to work together, sharing managers between them. “They don’t have the money. The vast majority of parishes in the Archdiocese of Dublin are struggling to stay afloat,” the source claimed.
Pointing out that this is not obviously the case in the accounts so far published, he predicted that future accounts would reveal this problem more clearly, noting that parishes which have sold off properties might appear financially healthy but lack future resources.
“We’re not saying that parishes are failing, but there’s a question mark over parishes in terms of sustainability,” the source said.