The Murphy Report overall assessment of Garda involvement in the McCabe case, detailed in Chapter 20, is unequivocal.
“The
connivance by the Gardaí in effectively stifling one complaint and
failing to investigate another, and in allowing Fr McCabe to leave the
country is shocking. It is noteworthy that the Commission would not have
been aware of the Garda activity in question were it not for the
information contained in the Church files.”
Most
of the criticism centred on Garda handling of an August 1986 abuse
incident involving McCabe and a 9-year-old altar boy. They boy told his
parents who reported it to gardai, who took a statement from the boy.
McCabe was called into the Garda station and
was accompanied by “a friend who was a retired garda sergeant who had
served in the district.”
The Murphy report found
it “extraordinary that no notes were taken during the course of this
interview”,while the Garda file was “missing”.
Most
bizarrely, it continued, “that evening Fr McCabe went to the home of
Garda Chief Superintendent Joe McGovern. Fr McCabe, then on a trip home
from the US, had been staying at a house belonging to the chief
superintendent since July.”
It said “he [MCCABE)]made certain limited
admissions to the chief superintendent who did not convey them to the
investigating garda, but who did convey them and the fact of the Garda
investigation to his local parish priest, Fr Curley.”
Chief
superintendent McGovern told the Commission “he considered Fr McCabe’s
behaviour to be a matter for the Church to deal with.
This was despite
his knowledge that an investigation had just commenced into an
allegation of indecent assault,” as the report puts it.
He said “the
question of disciplining the priest was a matter for Archbishop’s House
who were in the main responsible for the priest.”
A
copy of the abused boy’s statement given to gardai was forwarded to
Church authorities.
The Murphy report said that “even though the gardaí
knew that Fr McCabe intended to return to the USA, no warrant was sought
for his arrest.”
Murphy noted that “between 1988
and 2003 not a single inquiry had been made by the gardaí in relation
to this matter”and that “the Archdiocese’s handling of events was
facilitated in significant ways by the gardaí”.
“This
particular Garda investigation was marred by Church interference which
was facilitated by the gardaí and which was material in allowing Fr
McCabe to evade justice.”