The rather odd role of the DDP’s office in the Fr
Patrick McCabe case centres on the 1986 allegation involving abuse of a
nine-year-old altar boy.
Chapter 20 of the Murphy
report says that “the detective garda handling the investigation
contacted an official in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) seeking advice. The investigation stopped. No further inquiries were made by the gardaí”.
The
report observes that: “When a Garda file is submitted to the office of
the DPP for directions as to charges, if any, it is usual for the gardaí
to submit a report with the file outlining the nature of their
investigation, the evidence which has been gathered and their
conclusions as to the charges, if any, which should be brought.
“No such report was submitted nor directions
sought with this file when it was submitted to the DPP’s office.The
Garda evidence to the commission was to the effect that the file was
being forwarded more for the information of the DPP than for any other
purpose.”
The report said “the DPP’s office, in an
internal memorandum, expressed the view that Fr McCabe should be
prosecuted, were he available to be prosecuted, (McCabe was then back in
the US) on the basis that the boy’s statement of events was clear and
convincing. The office commented on the incomplete nature of the
investigation, for example, the failure to take statements from other
children and the parents, but the ultimate conclusion was ‘Even if one could, I wouldn’t bother extraditing him’.” (report italics).
The
report also found that, while there was “no documentary evidence
available that the DPP’s decision was communicated by the Chief State
Solicitor’s Office to the gardaí, the Garda superintendent of the
district in which the event occurred told the Commission that he was
aware that there was to be no prosecution.”