Head of Christian Brothers failed to report alleged historical child abuse claim to authorities

The head of the Christian Brothers in Ireland has apologised to a victim of historical sex abuse for not reporting an allegation to the Garda and the child and family agency Tusla.

The allegation was disclosed by Damian O’Farrell, an independent councillor with Dublin City Council, to the head of the Christian Brothers in Ireland, BR David Gibson, in August of last year.

However, when Mr O’Farrell checked earlier this year, the allegation had not been reported to the congregation’s own safeguarding service.

BR Gibson has since reported the matter to the authorities and told Mr O’Farrell he regretted his failure to do so earlier. Heads of religious orders are obliged in law to report allegations of child sex abuse to Tusla and An Garda Síochána.

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Mr O’Farrell was the subject of sexual abuse as a young boy by a former Christian Brother who was later convicted for the crime. At the time of the conviction, in 1998, Mr O’Farrell asked the court not to name the man because he had by then left the congregation, married, and had young children.

He told the court he had approached the congregation in good faith about the abuser in 1994 and was “led to believe things were in hand”, only to subsequently learn that the man was still teaching in a school in Dublin, where he remained until 1997. The Christian Brothers denied that they had failed to adequately deal with the complaint.

The former teacher was convicted again in 2017 for a separate crime of historical child abuse. A file is currently with the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to another two historical allegations against him.

Mr O’Farrell took a civil case against the congregation arising from being abused by the man, which was settled out of court some years ago.

In August of last year, at around the time BR Gibson was taking up the role of provincial of the European Province of the Christian Brothers, Mr O’Farrell met him to discuss the legal strategy being adopted in the courts by the congregation towards plaintiffs alleging historical child abuse. He said the strategy, which requires the plaintiff to go through a series of procedural applications to progress their case, constitutes a form of “double or secondary abuse”.

[ Christian Brothers’ legal strategy is a form of ‘secondary abuse’, says Dublin lord mayor ]

During the meeting Mr O’Farrell outlined his unhappiness with how the congregation leadership had dealt with him in the 1990s.

Following the meeting, Mr O’Farrell sent an email to BR Gibson, to both his personal and business email addresses, reviewing their discussion on the legal strategy being adopted by the congregation, and also referring to his fresh disclosure of alleged sex abuse involving a Christian Brother.

In the email, which has been seen by The Irish Times, Mr O’Farrell said it was only in recent years that he had come to understand that the second incident constituted sex abuse. (Mr O’Farrell says he was brought into a room and told to strip by the Christian Brother, while standing in a dark room in the light of a lamp.)

“I outlined to you other abuse I experienced at the hands of another [Christian Brother],” Mr O’Farrell said in the email. “I never took that to your order, such was my previous experience of dealing with the CB leadership.”

On March 14th last, Mr O’Farrell contacted Declan Daly, director of safeguarding with the Christian Brothers, by email, saying he had received no response to the abuse disclosure he had made in August 2022 to BR Gibson during a meeting and subsequently in an email.

Mr Daly responded a week later saying BR Gibson had said he recalled the August meeting but had “no recollection regarding any reference to abuse allegations” and was “unable to recall or find a copy of the email referred to”.

Mr Daly asked that Mr O’Farrell forward the details of the complaint to him so he could “make the necessary notifications to the State authorities.”

Mr O’Farrell sent another email to Mr Daly, outlining the new disclosure, his experience of dealing with the leadership of the congregation over the years and how upsetting the experience had been for him and his family.

[ More than 100 Christian Brothers face possible judgment in default over abuse case ]

Meanwhile, on March 22nd, a third party emailed BR Gibson about Mr O’Farrell’s disclosure, saying they were “completely dismayed” that proper procedures had not been followed.

The next day, in a response to the third party, BR Gibson said he had been of the view that the complaint had already been reported. He said he would check and if it had not been reported already, he would do so “without delay”.

Two hours later he emailed to say he had searched his files and “indeed now realise that I had not reported the new allegation of abuse”.

“I apologise for this failure to report. Our safeguarding officer has now reported the incident to An Garda Síochána, Tusla and the National Board [for safeguarding].”

On May 9th Mr O’Farrell got an email from Teresa Devlin, the chief executive of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland, who said she had spoken to BR Gibson about the matter. “He admitted that he failed to report,” she said, and “gave me an undertaking that he would contact you directly and offer you” support.

On the same day Mr O’Farrell received an email from BR Gibson in which he said he regretted his failure to report the matter and that once his failure had been brought to his attention by the third party, “I did so immediately”.

BR Gibson has been a senior figure in the Christian Brothers leadership for some time and has had extensive involvement in its response to the issue of child abuse.

He gave evidence to the investigative committee of the Ryan commission, which investigated abuse in a number of former institutions and reported in 2009.

A request for a comment from BR Gibson met with no response.