Profile: 'Formidable' is a recurring word used to describe the two sisters who drove the religious orders' compensation deal with the State for child abuse victims, writes Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent
At the end of the Falklands war the then US president Ronald Reagan is reported to have said of Britain's prime minister Margaret Thatcher that she was "the best man in England".
When discussing Sister Elizabeth Maxwell and Sister Helena O'Donoghue this week a public service source, who has dealt with both nuns as well as other senior clergy over many years, echoed President Reagan's sentiments.
Both nuns, accompanied by alternating religious Brothers and alternating lawyers, successfully isolated a Government minister and his secretary-general from the entire panoply of State and secured from them on January 31st, 2002 a deal in principle (later, in fact) that is increasingly seen in "shock and awe" terms.
According to this week's Comptroller and Auditor General's report, the 18 religious congregations for whom the nuns negotiated succeeded in contributing just €128 million (in cash and property) to a compensation deal for victims of abuse in residential institutions they ran, a deal which may yet cost the State between €887 million and €1 billion. Not just that, they also secured an indemnity from the State where all relevant future claims are concerned. How did they do it?
Yes, both nuns were advised, and sometimes accompanied, by a strong legal team, including Donal O'Donnell SC and four lawyers from Arthur Cox & Co solicitors. But, all sides agree, the sisters drove the deal.
It is a "nuns' story" with a difference - and as far from the demure ways of an Audrey Hepburn as the innocence of the days when The Nun's Story was showing in cinemas around the world.
"Formidable" is a word consistently used when talking to people about the sisters - both by those who admire them and those who do not. And both views centre on the same qualities of character.
The public service source above is an admirer. Witnessing the nuns in negotiations he developed "a high degree of respect" for both. Sister Maxwell played the role of facilitator, he recalled. She charmed, while Sister O'Donoghue did most of the negotiating, alongside their senior counsel.
They were "very strong women with a very strong sense of their mission". In difficult circumstances, they wanted things to happen and so kept the ball in play. They were "very honest, honourable" and "played a long game", possibly reflecting that pain today could mean gain tomorrow.
But among their fellow religious the knives are well and truly out for the good sisters. And in that sometimes pious world, so heavily nuanced that character assassination is often by a thousand "buts", there are few "buts" where the sisters are concerned. Just rage.
Such a rage is heading in their direction. It seems already to have swept aside much of that great Christian bulwark, charity.
The rage is rooted in one very simple statistic. There are 130-plus religious organisations affiliated to the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI). Just 18 of them were involved in residential institutions and negotiations with Government. They signed the deal, not as CORI, but as themselves individually. But "CORI" is all over the deal publicly. And it is argued by their critics that CORI, as CORI, need never have been involved at all.
Sister O'Donoghue represented one of those 18 congregations, the Sisters of Mercy. She was also on the executive of CORI. Sister Maxwell was CORI's secretary- general.
Some congregation members argue that Sister Maxwell had no necessary role in the negotiations. They question whether she had considered the implications, for other uninvolved congregations, of CORI's secretary-general being one of the negotiators.
This allowed CORI to be perceived in the public arena as an organisation connected with abusers. "It was crazy," says a source.
"Neither appears to recognise the damage [being done] to CORI. There is huge anger towards her [Sister Maxwell] among quite a number of religious."
For her part Sister Maxwell has insisted repeatedly that she attended the negotiations as a facilitator, as borne out by the public service source. She also points out that the 18 congregations in the front line are CORI members too and that as secretary general she was obliged to offer them such assistance.
Few queried Sister O'Donoghue's presence on the negotiating team as she represented the Mercy Order, one of the largest of the 18 congregations involved.
She was described as "very assured of her own convictions" but has been criticised in the past by some congregation members for her response to Christine Buckley, who was abused in Goldenbridge orphanage, which was run by the Mercy Order.
According to Ms Buckley, she had a very emotional meeting with Sister O'Donoghue following a Gay Byrne Show item in December 1992. Later meetings were postponed by the nun several times.
Ms Buckley was contacted again by Sister O'Donoghue prior to the broadcasting of the Dear Daughter documentary on RTÉ in February 1996 and was sent to see another nun in Inchicore, beside Goldenbridge. That nun offered to counsel 11 former Goldenbridge residents Ms Buckley was representing, across the road from the former orphanage, for 12 sessions each. How could they be expected to go for counselling "in the shadow of that Alcatraz", asks Ms Buckley. The offer was not accepted and Ms Buckley has had no contact with Sister O'Donoghue since.
Both Sister Maxwell and Sister O'Donoghue completed their full terms of office with CORI this summer.
Sister O'Donoghue, from Co Clare, whose signature was the first congregation leader's on the deal with the Government, has just returned from Kenya, where she was attending a meeting of Mercy Sisters from around the world. She is head of the Order's south central province here in Ireland. Before that, she was head of the Mercy Order in Killaloe diocese, before it was reorganised on a national, as opposed to a diocesan, basis. She was also president of CORI for two terms.
Sister Maxwell, from Co Carlow, is the elected leader of the Presentation Sisters' northern province, a post she assumed recently. In May 2002 she recalled, in this newspaper, how she went to an all-Irish boarding-school for girls, Our Lady of Victories in Mountmellick, Co Laois. She remembered that teachers there, lay and religious, "didn't believe in the concept of the glass ceiling. They never thought there was anything preventing women from advancement in their careers, and so they encouraged us to excellence".
She wasn't "a goody-goody". To illustrate this, she recalled that "when I broached the subject of joining the Presentation Sisters I was dismissed by the superior, who said: 'You're much more likely to go to college and get married in your first year.' To this day, I still don't know why she didn't encourage me, but I did go to the noviciate after my Leaving Cert and 45 years later I'm here still. So she was either mistaken, or a very good strategist."
Those who have had dealings with both women in a more neutral capacity down the years can vouch for the infectious charm of Sister Maxwell and the doughty character of Sister O'Donoghue. And indeed for the "formidable" tag appended to both. But generally more in admiration than as a criticism.
The Nuns' File
Who are they?
The chief negotiators of the €128 million indemnity deal agreed between the Government and 18 religious congregations towards a State compensation scheme for victims of abuse in residential institutions run by the same 18 congregations.
Why are they in the news?
The Comptroller and Auditor General John Purcell reported this week that the compensation scheme could cost the State as much as €1 billion.
Most appealing characteristics
Velvet gloves.
Least appealing characteristics
Steel hands.