SURVIVORS of institutional abuse have called on Taoiseach Enda Kenny to ask Pope Francis to intervene amid an impasse between religious orders and the Irish State over the Catholic Church's financial contribution to a redress scheme.
A group, Irish Survivors of Child Abuse (Soca), has said the religious orders which are signatories to the 2002 Indemnity Agreement with the State have reneged on their promises to pay their fair share towards the redress process.
Soca said Mr Kenny should "travel to Rome as soon as practical and demand a comprehensive and honourable settlement of all matters connected with the child abuse scandals which implicate the servants of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland".
"These matters have dragged on for too long," it said.
Owners of the largest Catholic institutions where children were abused while in State care have defended their contributions to the €1.5bn redress bill after a report by the State's auditor found that the 18 Catholic entities concerned had paid about 13 per cent of the cost.
In a statement, the Christian Brothers' leader Brother Edmund Garvey, said the audit report's 14-month-old figures do not take account of the congregations' more recent €14m cash payment.
Brother Garvey said playing fields worth "well over €100m" are almost ready to be transferred to the Edmund Rice Schools Trust.
In a separate statement, the Sisters of Mercy said they had honoured all of their commitments but the economic downturn had affected the State's gains.
They said of their 2009 commitment to make a €128m contribution, €81m was to be paid directly to the State in the form of properties.
The Sisters said that they had "always made clear that the value of (their) contribution was subject to the fluctuations in value attaching to individual properties".
