SISTERS OF CHARITY WHO REFUSED TO PAY REDRESS

THE Sisters of Charity or Irish Sisters of Charity is a religious organisation set up by Mary Aikenhead which opened its first convent in Dublin in 1815.

The order went on to found St Vincent’s Hospital, also in the capital, in 1834, which was the first hospital staffed by nuns in the English-speaking world.

In 1838, five nuns from the Sisters of Charity became the first religious women to travel to Australia but, since 1842, the Australian branch of the order has operated independently. The Sisters of Charity now operate in Ireland, England, Scotland, Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi, and California, and has its headquarters in Harold’s Cross, Dublin.

In England and Scotland, the religious institute operates as a registered charity, and between 2007 and 2008 it had an income of €18.5million and 251 employees. The Sisters of Charity, whose motto is ‘The love of Christ urges us on’, take four vows – chastity, poverty, obedience and service of the poor. The order has always emphasised healthcare and now runs hospitals, hospices and nursing homes all over the world.

They also run both primary and secondary schools, visit inmates in prison and set up the homeless charity Focus Ireland in 1985. The Sisters of Charity also ran residential institutions for children and Magdalene laundries for unmarried mothers in Ireland, and incarcerated inmates suffered years of horrific abuse in both.

The sisters still have not paid the full sum due in redress to the former residents of their institutions for children, and have refused to pay anything at all to the victims of the Magdalene laundries – even going so far as to ignore calls from the UN to contribute to compensation funds for their victims.

A report by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church from February 17, 2015, found that 213 living members of the order were currently in Ireland, and said the average age of the sisters was 76.

According to the report, many were still working in the wider community, with 40 nuns working in roles including school chaplains and family counsellors.