Call for prosecution of those behind cover-ups

ONE IN FOUR PRESS CONFERENCE:VICTIMS' GROUP One in Four has called for the prosecution of those who covered up for child sex abusers in the Archdiocese of Dublin.

The organisation said there could be “no excuse” for such cover-ups and those responsible should be held culpable.

One in Four executive director Maeve Lewis said the offence of reckless endangerment of children was only introduced into law in 2006, but covering up of any serious crime had always been an offence under common law and the evidence was there to bring prosecutions.

Criminal proceedings should be taken, not just against clergy, but against gardaí and health board personnel who knew of paedophile behaviour but did nothing. She described the extent of collusion by State authorities as “shocking”.

“We call on the Director of Public Prosecutions to instigate criminal investigations immediately against those who colluded and conspired to protect sex offenders and the institutional church and therefore facilitated the sexual abuse of more children,” she said.

“We do not have a culture of accountability in this country and those in authority who recklessly endanger children act with impunity. This must change,” she said.

Ms Lewis called for the extension of the work of the Commission into every diocese in the country and said the report demonstrated that the church could not be trusted to audit itself.

Yesterday’s press conference was attended by two survivors, Marie Collins and Andrew Madden, who were to the forefront in campaigning for an investigation into the Dublin Archdiocese.

Ms Collins, who was abused in the 1960s by a chaplain in Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, identified in the report as Edmondus, said it had been a “long road” for her and other campaigners, but she felt vindicated.

Its central finding, that the Church put the avoidance of scandal above the welfare of children “sums it up completely”, she explained. Ms Collins also said that the church could never be trusted again to audit its own child protection measures.

She maintained that the National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC) was inadequate because its membership was appointed by the church and it did not even have the right to implement its own guidelines.

If a diocese was not in compliance with child protection measures the board could not name that diocese and therefore parents and children living in that diocese would not know about it either, she said. “How can anybody say things have changed?”

Mr Madden, who went public on compensation paid to him by abusing priest Fr Ivan Payne – a move which precipitated the commission – said he was shocked by its findings even though he was aware of the reality of clerical sex abuse.

He said the 99-point plan brought forward by Minister of State for Children Barry Andrews to deal with safeguarding children should be implemented in full.

In particular Mr Madden wanted non-compliance with Children First: National Guidelines for the Protection and Welfare of Children to be made a criminal offence instead of a breach of contract, saying that under current law the failure to have a television licence was a greater offence.

Mr Madden said the rights of children should be enshrined in the Constitution and the Government needed to present the wording and a date for a referendum as soon as possible.

“This report is a shocking indictment on the Catholic Church in Dublin. Its publication, if not acted upon, will have been a wasted opportunity to raise standards of child protection in this country.”