This section is reprinted from The Irish Times, December 23, 2005. Author is Patsy McGarry Religious Affairs Correspondent. View original link at http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/1223/2692826011HM4ABUSE.html

Changes made to a document on the Catholic Church's communications website now state that a working group on child protection "unanimously agreed to be associated with" the church's child protection policy and procedures.

When the church published its Child Protection Policies and Procedures document, the website said that the working group "unanimously endorsed" the church's new child protection policy and procedures.

Clerical child sex abuse survivor Marie Collins has welcomed changes made yesterday to the document.

The Working Group on Child Protection was set up in May 2003 by the Catholic bishops, the Conference of Religious of Ireland (Cori) and the Irish Missionary Union "to develop a comprehensive and integrated child protection policy for the Irish Catholic Church".

Chaired by Maureen Lynott, who had previously chaired the committee which prepared the State's Children First guidelines, the working group disbanded in September 2004 after a heated row with the church steering committee over whether professionals or church leaders should decide how sex abuse complaints were handled. The church committee, mainly its Cori members, insisted that decisions should rest with church leaders.

In a letter to the steering committee, working group members said they were "greatly dismayed and disappointed that we have arrived at this point". Ms Lynott indicated that she would be available to meet the steering group should they develop a resolution to differences.

Afterwards, Ms Lynott, along with childcare consultant Dr Kevin McCoy and special adviser Ger Crowley, both of whom had also been members of the working group, held meetings with members of the church steering committee and a resolution to differences was arrived at.

On December 20th last year it was agreed that professional directors of child protection, rather than a bishop or religious superior, would have responsibility for receiving and reporting allegations of abuse to the civil authorities. Meanwhile, it would remain the responsibility of the bishop/superior to decide whether to suspend/stand down the accused priest or religious, on consideration of recommendations of the director of child protection.

It was also agreed that the church would set up a national board on child protection which would have responsibility for the implementation of policy as well as for auditing and publishing reports on its work. It would further decide how many directors of child protection there would be on the island and the areas for which they would be responsible.

Ms Lynott contacted other members of the defunct working group and a meeting took place on January 27th last in Maynooth, where they were briefed on what had transpired and as an acknowledgment of the work the group had done prior to disbandment.

Speaking to The Irish Times, Ms Lynott recalled that people at the meeting "were very relieved that a satisfactory resolution had taken place". Everyone in attendance spoke "and at the end I summarised the sentiment of the discussion - that the group welcomed the fact that these issues were now resolved and unanimously endorsed the document".

As the meeting was informal, no minutes were kept, but Ms Lynott remained clear about what took place.

Ms Collins is similarly convinced that the meeting agreed "unanimously to be associated" with the document, and that alone. That was in recognition of the good measures it contained, she said. But the issues which had led to the working group disbanding remained "outstanding", she added.

© The Irish Times