The Church today is a much safer place for children and young people
than it was in the past, said the Catholic bishops of Ireland at the
conclusion of their June meeting on Wednesday last (15th. June 2011).
Considering the intense efforts of thousands of people across the
Church to safeguard children, the existence of an independent body
formulating best practise, (the National Board for Safeguarding
Children), and the implementation of these standards by personnel in
parishes and church organisation, the bishops said the Church was
definitely safer, and restated their determination that children
involved in the life of the Church will be safe, no matter where they
are.
Their statement comes a month after the annual report of the National
Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church expressed its
disappointment and dismay at the lack of cooperation by Church
authorities with the Board when it discovered that the figures of
allegations of child abuse were higher than had been reported to them.
The National Board only found this out when it sought confirmation of
the figures just before the report was due to be concluded.
Answering this criticism, the bishops said progress had been slower
than hoped for in relation to monitoring and reviewing safeguarding
practise due to difficulties in the implementation of civil law in
relation to data protection.
“Data protection difficulties are real; they were not fabricated or invented to prevent progress,” they said.
Lawyers
acting for the National Board itself, as far back as 2007, had alerted
the Board that data protection law could pose difficulties in this area,
they said.
Three years later, in 2010, the Board engaged with the Data
Commissioner to deal with these issues.
“In his latest annual report the Data Commissioner refers to his
dealings with the National Board on this matter, speaking of a
‘successful navigation of the complex data protection issues that must
be considered when examining the processing of sensitive personal data
by a large number of separate, constituent organisations’.”
The bishops called on the government to take the “necessary
measures” to enable the National Board to do its job properly.
They
expressed their satisfaction at the Board’s report in relation to policy
development and training where “significant progress” has been made.
Each diocese or religious congregation now pays for the training of
safeguarding volunteers.
The bishops said they were eager to resolve
remaining issues with the National Board for Safeguarding Children as
soon as possible.