A senior figure in the Diocese of Raphoe says the loss of €7million from a crash in bank shares has been “a very big hit” for the Diocese to handle.Monsignor Dan Carr outlined the situation confirming the shares loss did equate to €7m in total across all the various parishes and groups such as schools involved in schemes but the loss to the diocese funding directly was more in the region of €1m.
He said dividends raised from the shares in both Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank are used to fund a number of extra diocesan services and charitable work but he insisted they would not turn to the parishes to replace this funding.
“The dividend from the share from Bank of Ireland and AIB help and support places like the Pastoral Centre, the Diocesan Archive, which takes quite a bit of money. They were not there before. It was for building or buying accommodation for the Chaplains of Letterkenny Hospital, the education of church students, priests on study leave, priests on sick leave and that type of thing. Particularly as a Catholic, Christian church we always have to be open and willing to support charities and there would be quite a bit of that as well,” he told Highland radio’s Shaun Doherty show.
Monsignor Carr said they would continue to work toward maintaining the provision of these services but admits the huge financial loss suffered would mean they will be “slowed down” as they will be unable to provide the previous levels of funding.
Figures compiled for a special Irish Independent investigation reported recently the Catholic diocese's Bank of Ireland investment were now worth €192,000 compared to more than €7m in 2007.
It showed Catholic diocese across the island suffered multimillion euro losses following the collapse of the BoI share price.
Monsignor Carr said shares investment was a common practice among religious groups.
He added the diocese was “roughly a million (euro) down at the moment” but they still have resources coming in continually and they had sufficient funds for “running costs”.
He said the fund acted as “seed corn” and served them well for many years but he admitted with the unprecedented economic down turn they made the mistake of putting “too many eggs in one basket”.
“What happened with this portfolio. It started off about 40 years ago with cheap shares and then that nest egg grew considerably with share issue rights or when people left shares, or bequeathed money and it was decided to put them into the shares and that type of thing. So in a very short time, from this small beginning this grew into quite a size,” he said.
He defend the local churches role in the investment admitting it was “a gamble” but expert recommendation at the time had advised the bank shares were “safe and sound” and many others had also lost heavily because of the situation.
SIC: DD/IE
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