Monday, April 18, 2011

Post-Cloyne training for child protection officers in dioceses

CHILD protection officers in the country’s 26 dioceses have received training in recent months on how much information to give to alleged abusers following the scandal in Cloyne where victim statements were handed to an accused priest before a garda interview.

The investigation did not find that Fr Bill Bermingham, the then child protection delegate, had breached church guidelines but the investigator underlined the importance of child protection delegate impartiality. 

The inquiry did not, however, recommend that new guidelines be drawn up to remove any possibility of further misinterpretation.

The National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC) held an investigation into complaints last year by two abuse victims that their statements were handed to the accused priest and his legal team — before he was interviewed by gardaí. 

When a complaint was made to them by one of the women, the board hired an independent consultant to review what had happened.

A spokesman for the NBSC said "the reason that we asked for the investigation was we realised that there was that possibility to interpret the guidelines that broadly and we wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again".

Meanwhile, in advance of the Murphy Commission report into the handling of abuse claims in Cloyne, abuse victims in the diocese have said that if dioceses are serious about child protection, they should consult victims about how best to develop future policy. 

They also suggested that anyone making a disclosure should be offered the support of other victims.

"Who knows better about the pain that sex abuse brings than the victims. Our experience is so valuable to people who are only coming forward for the first time. The vast majority of delegates are vastly unexperienced in the area of child abuse. Is there not a role for victims as child protection delegates within the Church? We know in our mind, body and soul what it is like to go through this pain," one victim said.