Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said he hopes justice had been served after a paedophile priest named in a damning State inquiry was jailed for sexually assaulting an altar boy.Tom Naughton was imprisoned for indecently assaulting the youngster while he was a priest in Blessington, Co Wicklow, in the 1980s.
The recent Murphy report into child sex abuse in the Dublin Diocese said more than 20 named people had made complaints against the convicted sex abuser.
The investigation also criticised Limerick Bishop Donal Murray for his failure to deal with allegations about Fr Naughton, which was deemed inexcusable.
Naughton, 78, appeared before Judge Michael O'Shea at Wicklow Circuit Criminal Court where he admitted five charges of sexual assault committed between 1982 and 1984.
The judge, who described the abuse as systematic, shocking and horrific, sentenced him to three years, with the final year suspended.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said: "Tom Naughton was an abuser who damaged the lives of many innocent young people.
"I hope those involved in the proceedings will find some solace and justice in his having to serve a jail sentence for his crimes."
In 1998, Naughton was jailed for abusing altar boys in parishes in Donnycarney and Ringsend. He was released two-and-a-half years later and has since lived under the supervision of the Kiltegan Fathers in Co Wicklow.
The Murphy commission said Fr Naughton's case was symptomatic of the Dublin Archdiocese's attitude to child sexual abuse in the 1980s.
"Until the problem became so great it could not be hidden, the archdiocesan procedure was to do all in its power to protect the wrongdoer, while almost completely ignoring the effect of this abuse on the victims," it said.
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