THE Government may order an examination into how the Catholic Church
dealt with sexual abuse allegations in dioceses across the country.
Children's Minister Frances Fitzgerald said Sunday that such a widespread inquiry "cannot be ruled out" after the Cloyne Report publication last week.
"We don't want to be carrying out unnecessary investigations, but we have to protect the children," Mrs Fitzgerald said.
"You cannot say that what was happening in Cloyne is definitely not happening in other dioceses," she added.
Information
from two hotlines established to provide anonymous help to victims, and
from an HSE audit to be completed in September, will be used to decide
which dioceses -- if any -- should be investigated.
Mrs Fitzgerald
called on the church to commit to publishing internal audits into six
of its dioceses -- three of which have already been completed.
Legislation,
making it mandatory for priests to report allegations of sexual
assault, is being drawn up.
Mrs Fitzgerald said that under the proposed
new law, any organisation that dealt with children would be required to
report such abuse.
Speaking on RTE radio, she also responded to
the claim by One in Four that 90pc of cases being referred to them by
the HSE were being ignored.
"Of course it's not acceptable, we've
made it absolutely clear, that historical cases of abuse have to be
assessed to see if there is any current risk of abuse," she said.