SIX years ago, anger at the Catholic Church's handling of clerical sex abuse reached a zenith when a damning documentary, 'Cardinal Secrets', was screened. 'Cardinal Secrets', which followed swiftly on the heels of 'Suing the Pope' -- an expose of sickening abuse in the Diocese of Ferns -- chronicled how priests in the Dublin diocese were granted a virtual licence to abuse children even after Church authorities received complaints from parents.
The scandal that shook the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world to its foundations broke in Dublin with an almighty vengeance.
The public, incensed by the scandal in Ferns, clamoured for the resignation of Archbishop Desmond Connell, whose tenure was devastated by revelations of paedophiles among his clergy.
The scale of the problem in the country's largest diocese, where 450 legal actions had been initiated against clerics, was staggering.
Within days of the broadcast, a 20-man team of detectives, dubbed the "God Squad," was assigned to examine existing and historic allegations of clerical sex abuse.
The probe, now abandoned, was to centre on claims from victims and their parents that Church authorities concealed the activities of abusive priests from civil authorities and transferred known and suspected abusers to new parishes where they continued to abuse.
In Dail Eireann, former Justice Minister Michael McDowell declared that a judicial inquiry would be established, with unfettered access to Church files, and he warned that errant priests and their leaders would face the full rigours of the law.
"I am not afraid of the bang of a crozier from any direction," said McDowell in an unprecedented salvo against the Church.
Access to diocesan files was, and remains, central to the Garda and State inquiry; Cardinal Connell is witness-in-chief to both.
Cardinal Connell pledged that gardai would have unlimited access and the hand-picked NBCI detectives duly travelled to his Drumcondra residence to inspect the files.
But the access was not unfettered. Files were inspected under the supervision of Cardinal Connell and his officials, and detectives could only photocopy -- not remove -- files relevant to their inquiries.
Four years later, the Garda inquiry ran into the sand with a handful of prosecutions and without sufficient evidence to lay charges against senior Church figures.
Five years ago Cardinal Connell survived yet another vote of no confidence when Dublin abuse victims Marie Collins and Ken Reilly called off a protest after the former archbishop again promised full access to his files.
The eleventh-hour climb-down was hailed as a shift in the Church's attitudes towards victims and received a further boost when newly installed archbishop and Vatican diplomat, Diarmuid Martin, promised that nothing would be withheld from State investigators.
However, clashes between canon law and civil law have always threatened to hinder the inquiry.
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