Greg Daly
Foreign Minister Simon Coveney. Proposals for religious orders to help tackle the housing shortage may hint at improved relations between Church and State, writes Greg Daly
Speaking last week at the formal opening of a supported housing project in a Dublin building once owned by the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, Housing Minister Simon Coveney said such projects show how religious orders could help the State tackle the crisis.
The order had handed over the building to Dublin City Council providing it be used by Sophia Housing to house the most vulnerable of the city’s homeless. Since December, 17 couples and one individual have been accommodated there.
Mr Coveney said he planned to ask Ireland’s religious orders to discuss how they could “talk about the contribution that they could make through the properties they either control or own, whether that’s land banks or individual properties that might be empty”, noting that, “in many cases orders want to actually donate whole buildings, in some cases very significant buildings, if they feel it’s going to be used for the right purposes”.
Partnership
Explaining that he would be seeking help from religious bodies throughout Ireland, not merely Dublin, he added, “We need to work in partnership with them.”
The minister’s recognition that a Church-State partnership may be needed if Ireland’s housing crisis is to be defeated follows on calls from Education Minister Richard Bruton for divested Church-owned schools to become Community National Schools which would have the State as patron while facilitating faith-formation for children of different religions.
Mr Bruton’s idea has been opposed by Educate Together, which claims there is no demand for this and says such schools would exacerbate differences between children by separating them for religious instruction.
Although neither idea has as yet met with resounding public support from Church bodies, what’s clear is that both suggestions have been constructive proposals indicative of a newly mature attitude towards the Church on the part of the Government, recognising that the Church is – collectively – the largest and most important actor in Irish civic society.
They stand in stark contrast to the actions of the last Government, with its attempt to blame the Vatican for domestic failures identified in the Cloyne Report, its since rectified closure of Ireland’s embassy to the Vatican, and its sustained criticism of Church-owned schools, with erstwhile Education Minister Ruairi Quinn arguing loudly for dioceses and orders to surrender control of their schools.
Perhaps most strikingly, Minister Coveney’s proposal suggests a softening of Enda Kenny’s previous government’s demand that religious orders fund half the €1.46 billion cost of compensating the victims of abuse in industrial schools some orders ran on behalf of the State.
The original compensation deal, agreed in 2002, arranged for the 18 orders who ran residential institutions to be indemnified from legal action in return for a transfer to the Government of property and assets worth €128 million.
This was intended to cover half the anticipated compensation costs, but a far larger number of claimants sought compensation than had been expected, and in 2010, following protracted negotiations, it was agreed that a further €348 million would be paid, but the last government maintained that a further €250 million was due.
Mr Coveney’s proposal, however, like that of Mr Bruton, suggests that the current Government thinks demands for Church bodies to hand over their property are counter-productive, and that it would be better for Irish society as whole if Church and State can work together for the common good.
Future disagreement between Church and State are surely inevitable, but there’s reason to hope future disagreements may be far less toxic than those of recent years.