The former nun convicted this week of raping a child in her care was removed from her post by the Sisters of Mercy in 1990, but the regional health board was not made aware of any allegations of sexual abuse, the board said yesterday.
The Mercy Order said yesterday it did not wish to expand on the statement it issued early yesterday morning until after the former nun has been sentenced next month.
Nora Wall (formerly Sister Dominic) and her co-accused, Paul McCabe, a homeless man, were convicted on Thursday night of the rape of a 10-year-old girl at St Michael's residential childcare centre in Cappoquin, Co Waterford, in the late 1980s.
Most of the children in the centre were placed there by the South Eastern Health Board. In a statement yesterday the SEHB said Sister Dominic was not one of its employees but had been appointed by the Sisters of Mercy.
"In 1990, the Order of Mercy advised the board that it was removing Sister Dominic from this post," the SEHB said. "At that time the board was not made aware of any allegations of abuse of children in the centre. A lay professional childcare manager was later appointed to and is still managing the centre.
"On 30/9/93 the manager of the centre contacted the board and advised that allegations of abuse had been made to him," it continued. "The board instructed two senior officers to investigate the allegation. This investigation was immediately undertaken.
"The investigation team found it difficult to establish firm, detailed, usable evidence of abuse but notwithstanding this the board decided to call in the gardai to take up the investigation. The board also satisfied itself that the children then in the centre were not at risk."
In a statement following the conviction, Sister Coirle McCarthy of the Sisters of Mercy said: "We are all devastated by the revolting crimes which resulted in these verdicts. Our hearts go out to this young woman who, as a child, was placed in our care. Her courage in coming forward was heroic. We beg anyone who was abused whilst in our care to go to the gardai."
Yesterday she said there had been a huge reaction within the order to what had emerged in the case. The reaction was one of shock at what had happened to the child who had been entrusted to their care, she said.
Following her departure from St Michael's, Nora Wall spent a brief period at the Negru Voda orphanage in Romania as part of a North-South group. Mr James Dillon, of Health Action Overseas, which has been closely involved with the Negru Voda orphanage for some years, said its rule from the start had been that no volunteer could ever be alone with a child. This applied both to its own volunteers and to volunteers from other groups such as that of which Nora Wall was part. "At no stage would she have been alone with any children," he said.
Mr Dillon said one of the lessons of the affair was that people should be very careful about whom they wrote references for, especially where the interests of children were concerned.
Nora Wall was able to back up job applications with references from a South Eastern Health Board official, written in 1992, and from one of the organisers of her trip to Romania in 1991.
She also spent some time as a volunteer at the Legion of Mary's Regina Coeli hostel for women and children in Dublin. Nobody was available at the Legion's headquarters yesterday to comment.
The SEHB yesterday referred the public to a confidential free-phone help-line at 1800 331234, funded by the Conference of Religious in Ireland.