This section is reprinted from The Irish Times, October 14, 2009. Author is Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent. View original link at http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1014/1224256617284.html

The High Court is to deliver its reserved judgment tomorrow morning on what content of the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation report may be published at this time.

The judgment will be delivered in public and follows in camera proceedings on the matter that took place on October 1st and 2nd last.

The report followed an investigation by the commission into how clerical child sex abuse allegations involving a sample of 46 priests were handled by Catholic Church authorities in Dublin between January 1st, 1975, and April 30th, 2004. Some of the cases involve men facing child-abuse charges.

Under section 38 of the Commission of Investigation Act 2004, the Minister for Justice must seek directions from the High Court if it is felt publication of a commission report might prejudice criminal proceedings, pending or in progress.

On receipt of the report last July, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern referred it to the Attorney General who, in turn, advised that it be referred to the High Court. In doing so the Minister said that he was anxious the matters it dealt with were “put into the public domain as quickly as possible”.

He expressed concern that nothing should be done that would harm the prospects of perpetrators of abuse being brought to justice.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin said last week his “personal preference would be for the report to come out quickly and in its integrity because, reading it in its integrity, the question emerges better”.

© This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times