The following Press Statement was issued after the ACP’s annual meeting on 29 October:
The AGM approved three new members to the Leadership Team.
Seamus Ahearne (Augustinian, working in Dublin diocese); Gerry
Alwill (Kilmore diocese – parish priest of Drumkeerin); Gerry O’Connor
(Redemptorist, working in Cherry Orchard parish, Dublin)
We welcome these new members to our Team.
P.J. Madden is retiring
from the team.
Tony Flannery will remain on pro tem, in view of the
current unavailability of Brendan Hoban, due to illness.
2. The AGM reviewed the work of the past three years, and discussed what are the pressing needs for the future.
3. The ACP AGM has noted that the recent publication by Fr. Tony Flannery, A Question of Conscience, was not available in Veritas bookstores. A motion was passed requesting a full explanation as to why this decision was made.
4. The Murphy Report: The AGM was presented with a critique of
the Murphy Report commissioned by the ACP, and written by Fergal
Sweeney, retired High Court Judge from Hong Kong. This document is now
available on the ACP website. Its main points are:
(i). The 2004 Act, which set up Commissions of Investigation was
based on the report of the Law Reform Commission (2003). It was an
attempt to find a way to investigate matters of national concern without
the long drawn out and expensive procedures of Tribunals. But, as the
Dail debates at the time show, it did not include sufficient safeguards
for the basic rights of the individual being investigated. (See four
minimum rights which the Supreme Court set down in the Abbeylara
judgement).
(ii). The Terms of Reference for the investigation into the
handling of cases of clerical sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Dublin
laid out that it would investigate the various institutions that were
involved – the Archdiocese, the HSE, The Garda Siochana, the DPP’s
office. It was to investigate institutions rather than individuals, and
for this reason those who gave evidence were asked to forgo their normal
constitutional rights, on the understanding that nothing in the report
would defame them personally.
(iii). The report largely followed this in relation to the HSE,
the Garda and the DPP’s office, but it named and shamed both bishops and
priests. These men were not given their basic right to defend
themselves in the context of the investigation.
(iv). None of this takes away from the clearly proven fact that
children were abused by clergy, and Church authorities covered up those
crimes.
(v) We have commissioned this report not to contest the
fundamental findings of the Murphy Commission, and to point out that the
procedures followed by Judge Murphy were flawed, and as such this type
of Commission of Investigation needs to be reformed before it is used
again. We believe that asserting the right to natural justice for one
section of society while depriving another section of that same right is
not a proper exercise of law.
Gerry O’Connor 0872320295
Sean McDonagh 087 2367612
Tony Flannery 087 6814699