Minister unlikely to hold more abuse audits

FURTHER STATUTORY inquiries into the handling of clerical child abuse allegations by church and State authorities are unlikely in the immediate future, Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald has indicated.

The Minister said she would await the results of a State-wide Health Service Executive audit on current child protection practices before deciding whether such further statutory inquiries were necessary.

However, she has refused to rule out an inquiry into practices in the diocese of Raphoe in Co Donegal. She expected to have a “full picture” from the HSE of protection measures in each diocese next year but cautioned that the expense of statutory inquiries would also have to be considered.

Ms Fitzgerald was speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland following the publication on Wednesday of reports on child protection practices in six dioceses dating back to 1975. 

Published by Raphoe, Derry, Dromore, Kilmore, Ardagh and Clonmacnois dioceses, and Tuam archdiocese, they disclosed how church authorities in each dealt with 164 allegations of child abuse made against 85 priests, eight of whom were convicted in the courts.

The reports found that successive bishops made significant errors of judgment in Raphoe when dealing with allegations, but that Kilmore diocese was “a model of best practice”.

Ms Fitzgerald also said she would await further reports from the Catholic Church’s National Board for Safeguarding Children which prepared Wednesday’s reports, not due until May or June next year.

She said she had “not ruled out” a statutory inquiry into Raphoe, where findings this week had been “disturbing” and illustrated “bad practice by a succession of bishops”.

She added that legislation introducing mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse allegations should be ready for the next Dáil term.

Ms Fitzgerald said a memorandum on child protection legislation had been agreed by the Government and she hoped the heads of a Bill would progress to committee stage next year.

“We will make it obligatory to report,” she said. It would “apply to voluntary and statutory bodies. It will apply to faith groups and it will be obligatory to report child safety concerns.”

The Association of Catholic Priests has said many of the 85 priests who faced allegations in the six dioceses “have remained in a limbo situation for years, asserting their innocence but having no way of clearing their name”.

Of the 85, eight have been convicted in the courts.

In a statement, the group quoted a legal expert as saying that the way these priests had been treated “offends the very basic and fundamental principles of natural justice and fair procedures”.

It said “many bishops, in their great desire to implement the child protection guidelines, and to be seen by the media to be doing so, have lost sight of the rights and entitlements of priests to their good name and reputation.”

These included “innocent priests whose reputations, character and lives have become collaterally and often permanently damaged without any possibility of redress”.

The We Are Church group said that Wednesday’s reports revealed “a further litany of disgrace for our Catholic Church”. 

They said “it again grieves us as Catholics to have to relive the pain caused to so many children by priests who abused their positions of trust”.