Marie Collins was abused by a priest when she was 13. Her dealings with Cardinal Connell on the matter adds to her anger, writes Caroline O'Doherty.
He had bedtime stories to comfort an anxious child and his arrival on the ward meant the grateful night nurse could nip off for a tea-break.
It was 1960 and trusting 13-year-old Marie Collins thought Father Paul McGennis was lovely.
But within days the chaplain at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin in Dublin was sexually abusing her.
The shock, the burden of secrecy, the misplaced feelings of guilt and the constant anxiety that photographs he took of her during the abuse would surface, sent Ms Collins into a depression that would recur long into her adult life. But when she tried to address her stolen childhood, she was betrayed once more.
In 1985, Ms Collins confided in a counsellor who encouraged her to tackle the church authorities.
The priest she approached refused to take details and implied the abuse was her fault. "I was shattered by the response," she says.
It was 10 years later, during the Brendan Smyth controversy, when she felt compelled to try again.
She went to see a senior cleric in the Dublin archdiocese who said he would interview McGennis. Months later she was told McGennis had admitted the abuse and that a letter of discipline had been placed on his file. His superior would later write to Ms Collins to say McGennis had assured him the photographs were destroyed.
Yet the same man refused to make a statement to the gardaí about McGennis's admission and would not admit to writing the letter about the photographs.
Neither would the church hand over McGennis's file, later found to contain evidence that the church knew about the priest's behaviour as far back as 1960.
Ms Collins eventually met the then Archbishop Desmond Connell and challenged him about the non-co-operation. She says he told her he was acting on legal advice.
This was 1996, some months after the church had issued guidelines which called for swift action against abusers and the presumption of truth from the accuser until proved otherwise. "I felt totally betrayed and just cut loose. I thought the church would want help to remove this man but they looked on me as a nuisance."
Ms Collins fears little has changed. The priest who did not want to know was made parish priest in McGennis's place when he was arrested.
Although McGennis was eventually sentenced to 18 months in prison, the hierarchy's response to the renewed Sean Fortune controversy has further dented Ms Collins's confidence in them.
Her son was an altar boy and her husband is active in the parish so she feels her alienation from the church keenly.
"My belief in God is not affected but it has ruined my faith in the institutions of the church."
She believes Cardinal Connell has many questions to answer and feels an inquiry, with powers to force the church to co-operate, may be the only way forward.