CHILD CARE groups have welcomed the recommendation by the bishops' committee that all known or suspected cases of abuse should be reported to the Garda or RUC.
The report was also welcomed by Mr Austin Currie, Minister of State for Health. He said he looked forward to the response of the church and all other interested parties to the discussion paper on mandatory reporting which he would be publishing shortly.
The Children's Rights Alliance, which represents 51 organisations, said the report described a proactive approach which could be taken by the Catholic Church and which was potentially extremely positive.
It noted that the report included an expression of gratitude to victims who had come forward and said "such statements send clear messages to victims and potential victims of abuse as well as to perpetrators."
The report was criticised by a man who was paid more than £27,000 compensation in 1993 by a Dublin priest, Father Ivan Payne, whom he accused of sexually assaulting him when he was a child.
He said the committee had issued guidelines which individual bishops could choose not to follow and that they had failed to deal with the issue of liability and compensation in abuse cases.
The possibility that people convicted of child abuse could be given another ministry had been left open in the report, he said, as was the possibility that a diocesan panel could investigate complaints itself in the first instance.
He said he also questioned whether people who had managed complaints in the past should be appointed to the new diocesan panels.
A statement by the Irish Association of Social Workers raised some of the same points.
The church had failed to accept its responsibility as a corporate body for its negligence in relation to past allegations of sexual abuse by the clergy and religious, it said.
And it noted that there was no reference to sanctions or disciplinary measures that could be taken if the committee's guidelines were ignored.
The National Parents' Council Primary welcomed the report and called on the Catholic bishops to make a vigorous effort to ensure that the Stay Safe programme was fully implemented in every school in the Slate.
"There are sadly many schools where the programme is not being implemented," it said. "This is urgent and vital for the protection of children and for helping children who have been abused to come forward."
Barnardos gave the report a strong welcome, saying that "society as a whole might take a lead from the bishops' advisory committee in endorsing the principles on which its report is founded."
The ISPCC described the report as "a watershed both for the church and Irish society."
It called for the quick introduction of mandatory reporting for people working in statutory and other child care services. "Doctors, psychiatrists, counsellors and some social workers remain ambivalent in the reporting of some abuse, particularly in the case of retrospective reports from adult survivors," it said.
The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell, welcomed the report and said he had appointed Mgr Alex Stenson, Chancellor of the Diocese, as Delegate, and Father John Dolan as Assistant Delegate. Under the guidelines, the Delegate will be the key church official dealing with abuse complaints in each diocese.