Payne released after 4? years in prison

Convicted child abuser Father Ivan Payne was released from jail at the weekend after serving 4½ years of a six-year sentence.

Father Payne (59) will remain a priest in the care of the Dublin archdiocese but he has been barred by the Catholic Church from administering the sacraments.

He was convicted in 1998 after pleading guilty to 13 sample charges of indecently assaulting nine boys on dates from 1968 to 1987.

The offences were committed on patients in Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, while he was chaplain there, and on altar boys in locations in Glasnevin and Sutton. The victims were aged between 11 and 14 at the time.

At his trial, he apologised to his victims, their families and friends, as well as his own family and friends.

Father Payne was a member of the church's Dublin Regional Marriage Tribunal from its inception in 1976 until he was suspended in 1995.

A spokesman for the Dublin archdiocese confirmed last week that Father Payne (59) would be provided with accommodation by the archdiocese and an income equivalent to that of a retired priest.

It is estimated he has cost the archdiocese €400,000 in compensation and legal fees. This includes £30,000 paid to Mr Andrew Madden, who in 1994 became the first clerical child sex abuse victim in Ireland to go public.

This sum had been provided in what the archdiocese described as "a loan" to Father Payne in 1993.