The Cloyne report may be published this week.
Prepared
by the Murphy commission, it follows an investigation into the handling
of clerical child sex abuse allegations by church and state authorities
over a 13-year period in the Catholic diocese of Cloyne.
Last
week, Minister for Justice Alan Shatter said it was “likely the report
can be brought before Cabinet on Tuesday and be published very shortly
thereafter.”
Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1’s This Week
programme he indicated the delay in publication of the report was due
to “a long-drawn-out process of consultation involving lawyers who had
an interest in the matter”.
The completed report was presented on 23
December to the former Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern.
Its
findings concern clerical child sex abuse allegations made between
January 1st, 1996, when the Catholic Church in Irelandfirst introduced
child protection guidelines, and February 1st, 2009.
It was ordered by
the government in January 2009 after publication the previous month of a
report on the Cloyne diocesan website that found child protection
practices there were “inadequate and in some respects dangerous”.