The Catholic Church's Our Children, Our Church child protection guidelines are now operative in all its 26 dioceses on the island, including those in Northern Ireland, it has been confirmed.
A spokesman for the Northern bishops said yesterday that issues surrounding the introduction of the guidelines in Northern dioceses had been resolved.
He added they will be included in any updated material which may emerge from the new National Board for Child Protection, but "the Our Children, Our Church policy now applies in the North as much as it applies in the South".
Shortly after the guidelines were published in December 2005, it emerged that changes were being planned to protection of children vetting legislation in Northern Ireland, and the church decided to delay implementation of its new guidelines there until those changes were complete.
A PSNI spokesman confirmed that its recent investigations of Catholic priests in Northern Ireland in connection with "historic cases" of child sex abuse allegations followed on from information supplied to it by the Catholic Church authorities.
Files concerning "a number" of those priests are now with Northern Ireland's Public Prosecution Service, he said.
The spokesman for the Northern Bishops said that since 2005 a review team appointed by them has been in discussions with the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety and the PSNI Child Protection Unit there "to ensure that the Catholic Church is at the forefront of best practice in regard to the new vetting legislation" there.
He also said that all allegations against diocesan clergy from all Northern Catholic dioceses since 1965 had been provided to the Northern Ireland authorities in March 2006, according to the new protection of children threshold.
It was from their review of church files for the 40-year period between 1965 and 2005, that it emerged that 47 priests of the approximate 2,000 who have served in Northern Ireland's Catholic dioceses over the period, had child sex abuse allegations made against them.
