A report detailing the alleged sexual abuse of 450 children by Roman Catholic priests in the Archdiocese of Dublin was handed to the Irish Government yesterday. It is the second one this year to examine the extent of abuse perpetrated by members of the Catholic Church in Ireland and will undermine further its position in a country that only a few decades ago conformed rigidly to standards set by the Vatican.
The Report of the Dublin Archdiocese Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was delivered to Dermot Ahern, the Justice Minister, who must decide if and when to make its findings public.
Two priests named in the report are facing prosecution and publication may prejudice their trials.
When the Ryan commission report found systematic sexual, physical and emotional abuse of hundreds of thousands of children in institutions run by the Christian Brothers, Sisters of Mercy and other religious orders, there was national anger.
Dr Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin, has already acknowledged that this is likely to be repeated once the latest report is published. Dr Martin handed over 66,583 documents to the commission, which is presided over by Justice Yvonne Murphy.
In a television documentary, he said that since 1940 more than 400 children had been abused by at least 152 priests in the Dublin area. In April the Archbishop told his congregation that the report’s revelations would “shock and horrify us all”.
He said: “It is likely that thousands of young people across Ireland were abused by priests in the period under investigation and the horror of that abuse was not recognised for what it is.”
The commission was established in 2006 and has investigated how allegations of child sex abuse made against a representative sample of 46 priests were handled by 19 bishops in Dublin from January 1975 to April 2004.
The report is likely to produce evidence of how bishops sought to cover up the activities of paedophile priests by moving them from diocese to diocese, thereby facilitating the abuse of children over a wider area.
The arrest in 1994 of Father Brendan Smyth, who was convicted of abusing children in Dublin, Belfast and the US over 40 years, led to the collapse of the Irish Government.
Last year Cardinal Desmond Connell, who was replaced as Archbishop of Dublin by Dr Martin in 2004, abandoned a lengthy legal challenge to his successor’s transfer of tens of thousands of church files to the commission.
The cardinal, who retired under criticism for his handling of clerical sex abuse allegations, had argued that the files were legally privileged.
The commission investigated nineteen bishops, seven of whom are dead. Its report is expected to name fifteen priests, eleven of whom have been convicted.
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