This section is reprinted from The Irish Times, November 23, 2009. Author is Patsy McGarry and Mary Minihan. View original link at http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1123/1224259298577.html

The Report into the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations by church and State authorities in Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese is now likely to be published on Thursday.

Plans to publish it earlier this week had to be changed due to tomorrow’s public sector strike, which would mean helplines would not be available for people who had suffered abuse. It is also expected to be discussed at tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting, though this may be brief as it was brought before the Cabinet last month following the High Court clearance of the report for publication on October 15th.

After that, and following representations by the DPP to the Department of Justice, it was referred back to the High Court on October 21st when it came to light that criminal proceedings had been initiated on October 2nd and 5th last against another priest dealt with in the report.

Following consideration of this latter case at in camera hearings on October 29th, November 18th and again on Thursday of last week, the report was cleared for publication by Mr Justice Paul Gilligan with further edits.

According to a report in yesterday’s Sunday Independent, the report has found that the church authorities covered up clerical child sex abuse in Dublin and that this was facilitated by its structures and rules. It has also found that this was helped by State authorities who allowed the church to be beyond the reach of normal law enforcement processes with some gardaí making inappropriate contact with the archdiocese about allegations.

Some gardaí simply reported allegations to the archdiocese rather than investigating them. It has found that archbishops McQuaid, Ryan, McNamara and Connell did not report clerical child sex abuse to gardaí throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, according to the article.

The newspaper also said that the report has found that when Cardinal Connell, then archbishop of Dublin, forwarded details of allegations against 17 priests to the gardaí in 1995, there was knowledge in the archdiocese of complaints against 29 priests. It has further found that, with some few exceptions, priests in the archdiocese chose to turn a blind eye to clerical child sex abuse.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said in a statement last night it was “regrettable that several months after the completion of the report, selected sections of it, or a draft thereof have been published; however, all involved should be mindful of those most in need of help”. Andrew Madden, the first person in Ireland to go public about his abuse by a priest, said it was “wholly inappropriate that those of us who have worked so hard over the years to ensure that the Government held this inquiry should now be reading extracts of the report in a Sunday newspaper before we have even been notified of a date and time for publication”.

Fine Gael spokesman on children Alan Shatter said: “No public interest is served in selected extracts from the report being cynically drip-fed to the media by self-serving Cabinet Ministers in the hope of future, personal, favourable media coverage.”

A spokesman for Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said: “We don’t comment on speculative stories that appear in newspapers. The Minister’s intention is to publish the report hopefully by the end of the coming week.”

© The Irish Times