The Catholic church must speed up the processing of sexual abuse damages claims and complete the hundreds of payments by the end of the year, parliament has told the church authorities.

Last week, Wim Deetman who chaired the commission investigating the abuse called on the church to increase the tempo of settlements, a position now echoed by a majority of MPs.

Last month it emerged the church has so far paid out €3.1 million to abuse victims. Compensation is made on a sliding scale of one to five.

‘If you consider how long the church has hidden the abuse, then they should want to solve this as quickly as possible,’ VVD parliamentarian Ard van de Steur told Nos television.

It is unclear from the Deetman commission website how many abuse victims are entitled to compensation.