The Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris, said gardaí are re-examining the original Garda investigation into shocking allegations that late Bishop Eamonn Casey sexually abused a number of children, because concerns had been raised about the original Garda investigation into the claims.
Mr Harris was speaking to reporters in Limerick at the launch of Garda body worn cameras to beef up Garda crime detection measures and provide additional safeguards for Garda members on duty.
When asked what form the review of the original Garda investigation, into the claims against Bishop Casey, would take, Mr Harris revealed the reason he sanctioned a fresh review of the investigation was because concerns had been raised about the original probe.
Clarifying why he ordered the review, Commissioner Harris said: “Maybe a couple of different elements of things were said last week in terms of prolific sex offending, so, in respect of Bishop Casey, what I have asked for is for the original file to be examined.
"There was a query as to, actually, the nature and efficiency and effectiveness of that investigation.”
“I want to be sure as to the standard of the (original) investigation that was conducted and that is what is happening in respect of that file,” Commissioner Harris added.
The Garda Commissioner refused to say if An Garda Siochana had received any fresh complaints of a sexual nature in respect of Bishop Casey, following on from last week’s television documentary by Irish Daily Mail journalist Anne Sheridan, broadcast on RTÉ television, which revealed that Casey allegedly molested children, including his niece Patricia Donovan, and that he had had a number of sexual relationships with adult women.
When specifically asked if gardaí had received any new complaints since the documentary aired on July 22d, Commissioner Harris replied: “I’m not going to comment on individual complaints coming forward, thank you.”
When asked if he had watched the documentary, Mr Harris responded: “No, I didn't see the documentary.”
The Limerick Catholic Diocese, where Casey began is ministry, told Ms Sheridan it paid €100,000 to an alleged victim of child sexual abuse by Casey.
The compensation was one of a number of explosive revelations in the documentary.
Casey, who was born in Kerry but grew up in Adare, Co Limerick, and went to school in St Munchins College, Limerick, was once credited with tackling inner city poverty and homelessness in parishes in Limerick and later in England.
However, while Casey’s fall from grace over fathering a child with his distant cousin Annie Murphy was widely reported in the 1990s, Ms Sheridan’s investigative reporting into the allegations that Casey had sexually assaulted children, has once again rocked the Catholic Church in Ireland.
Speaking publicly for the first time, in the documentary, Casey’s niece, Patricia Donovan, alleged he sexually abused her for a number of years from when she was five years old.
Ms Donovan said: “Some of the things he did to me, and where he did them…the horror of being raped by him when I was five, the violence...and it just carried on in that vein.”
Ms Donovan said Casey “had no fear of being caught” and that “he thought he could do what he liked, when he liked, how he liked”.
“He (Casey) was almost incensed that I would dare fight against him, that I would dare try and hurt him, I would dare try and stop him… It didn’t make any difference.”
Ms Donovan, in her 60s, reported the abuse claims about her uncle in 2005, but Casey, who was forced to resign as Bishop of Galway in 1992, after his affair with Ms Murphy came to light, was never charged with or convicted of any sexual offences.
Despite her claims, Ms Donovan has not received any compensation from the church. However, the Galway Diocese did pay for physiological counselling on her behalf.
The explosive documentary, Bishop Casey’s Buried Secrets, highlighted a total of eight allegations of child and adult sexual assaults and child safeguarding concerns against Casey, who was and still is, despite the claims, revered by some.
The former chief executive of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland, Ian Elliot, said that in his opinion, Casey, who died aged 89, was “a sexual predator”.
Mr Elliott said he found Patricia Donovan’s claims as “entirely credible”.
In 2019, the Galway Diocese, where Casey was bishop from 1976 to 1992, told Anne Sheridan that it had received just one allegation of child sexual abuse against him.
However, Sheridan revealed in the documentary that Galway has since confirmed it had records at that time of “five people who had complained of childhood sexual abuse against Bishop Casey” relating to alleged events in every Irish diocese where Casey worked — Limerick, Galway and Kerry.
The first known allegation of paedophilia against Casey was made in 2001 by an unidentified female who claimed that she had been sexually abused by Casey on two occasions, when he was a chaplain to St Joseph’s Reformatory School in Limerick in 1956.
This woman later took High Court proceedings against Casey for personal injury damages, alleging Casey sexually assaulted her in Limerick, when she was aged fifteen.
This woman was eventually awarded a financial settlement through the Residential Institutions Redress Board.
The documentary also revealed that the Vatican confirmed it had actually banned Bishop Casey from ministry “before 2006” and that his ban was reiterated to him formally in 2007 after they received multiple child sex abuse complaints against him, including the 2001 complaint, as well as the complaint by Ms Donovan in 2005.
A spokesman for Limerick Diocese said it received the first complaint about Casey in 2001.
However, despite the Limerick Diocesan Office passing on Ms Donovan’s complaint to the Diocese of Arundel & Brighton, England, where Casey was serving, Casey - who should have then been suspended - remained active in ministry for a further four years, because the complaint went missing.
A statement provided to the documentary by the Diocese of Arundel & Brighton read: “Had this allegation been made today the police would have been informed immediately. We are deeply disappointed that this course of action does not appear to have been taken in 2001.”
“We have undertaken a very thorough search of diocesan records. Regrettably, given the passage of time, we have been unable to locate relevant written records or to speak to anyone able to shed light on Limerick Diocese’s communication in 2001.”
The current Bishop of Limerick, Dr Brendan Leahy, who has access to documents relating to complaints against Casey which were made in the Limerick diocese, has expressed his “deep sorrow and regret to anyone who has been wounded by clerical abuse, including the people referred to in this documentary”.
“They deserve our respect, belief and support. Without commenting on any specific allegation, I have no reason to disbelieve any of the allegations made,” added Bishop Leahy.
Casey, who died in 2017, had always vehemently denied all allegations against him of sexual abuse.