Chai Brady
The Christian Brothers have continued to defend their decision to sell pitches worth €18m beside a Dublin school, as they are under legal obligation to do so.
Despite backlash from the Board of Management of Clonkeen College in Deansgrange and the local community they have made no indication they will renege on their legal commitment to the buyer – who is a housing developer. Legal proceedings look increasingly likely as the board of management threatened legal action in a letter sent on June 21 last month. The Christian Brothers had until Tuesday to reply, and it is understood that they have.
The Christian Brothers released a statement saying: “To date the congregation has been able to minimise impact for third parties by selling land at its Province Centre on Griffith Avenue as well as several residences in which brothers were living.
Resources
“As congregation resources are limited, it follows that delivery in one area can sometimes require difficult and hard decisions in another.”
The school will be given 6.6 acres in total, which includes 3.1 acres already given in 2008, with 3.5 acres more being offered for free. The school is also being offered €1.3m. It is believed €10m of the land sale will be used to pay the State Redress Scheme, to compensate victims of abuse.
The Board of Management contends that in 2006 an agreement was made that the land wouldn’t be sold as long as a school remained there, but the Christian Brothers deny this saying they have “contemporaneous notes” which “make clear there was no such agreement”.
