POLITICAL REACTION: LEGISLATION which will make it
an offence for people aware of child sexual abuse to withhold this
information from gardaí is due to be enacted later this year.
Minister
for Justice Alan Shatter, who announced the upcoming legislation in the
wake of the publication of the Cloyne report, also expressed the
State’s “sorrow and profound apology” for any failings on its part in
relation to the revelations contained in the report.
He strongly
criticised the Catholic Church’s handling of allegations of clerical
abuse in Cloyne, saying the findings “could not be starker or more
disturbing”.
Mr Shatter said it was “truly scandalous that people
who presented a public face of concern continued to maintain a private
agenda of concealment and evasion” by failing to operate guidelines on
how to handle cases of the sexual abuse of children.
He was also
strongly critical of the Vatican, which he said had been “entirely
unhelpful” in its stance that the guidelines were “merely a study
document”.
Commenting on the involvement of the papal nunciature,
the Minister said: “It is unfortunate and unacceptable that, in
circumstances in which the public in this country were given an
assurance that particular guidelines would be complied with, that
another state, and essentially the ambassador in Ireland of another
state, should have in any way interfered with that and confused the
message.”
Mr Shatter published proposals for a Criminal Justice
(Withholding Information on Crimes against Children and Vulnerable
Adults) Bill, with a penalty of up to five years’ imprisonment for those
who fail to report an arrestable offence against a child or vulnerable
adult.
Mr Shatter said no “legal grey area” would exist in
relation to the legislation. He indicated that the laws would apply
regardless of the internal rules of an organisation, for example in the
case of patient-doctor confidentiality or, regarding priests, the seal
of the confessional.
The legislation will, however, include provisions
to safeguard victims of abuse, meaning they cannot be prosecuted for
withholding information.
It is also the Government’s intention to put Children First guidelines, to be published on a statutory footing.
Minister
for Children Frances Fitzgerald said the “most horrifying aspect” of
the Cloyne report was that “it is not a catalogue of failure from a
different era . . . This is about Ireland now.”
“We now know that,
up until three years ago the Catholic Church in the Diocese of Cloyne
represented a danger to children. We cannot say with certainty that the
same is not true in other dioceses around the country.”
Ms
Fitzgerald said audits of every diocese in Ireland, as indicated by the
National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church,
should now take place and should be published.
While the board had
indicated it had come up against data protection objections, she said
this had been investigated by the Data Commissioner who said no such
issues existed.
She said the remit of the Health Information and
Quality Authority would be extended to include oversight of the Health
Service Executive’s child protection services.