DELAYS IN attending to the health of a child can have long-term consequences which time may never be able to address, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Most Rev Diarmuid Martin has said.
"Investment in the health of children must always remain a priority . . . even in times of cutbacks," he said, adding that "in the area of children's health, prevention at an early stage is vital".
Archbishop Martin was speaking at the Foundation Day Conference of Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Crumlin, at Farmleigh House, Dublin, yesterday. He is chairman of the hospital's board of directors. "The concern for the poorest, which was the inspiration behind the establishment of this hospital, must always remain a priority,'' he said.
The archbishop would not be drawn on a report in the current edition of the Irish Catholic newspaper, which said that in a letter marked "private and confidential" and sent to priests of the archdiocese, he described as "staggering'' the scale of clerical child sex abuse in the archdiocese in the past. He told The Irish Times that he did not comment on letters marked "private and confidential".
However, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese last night described a front-page blurb in the Irish Catholic as "inaccurate and misleading". The blurb reads: "Abuse report. Dublin priests to get early briefing''. It was felt this could give an impression that Dublin priests would be given a briefing on the report from the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation prior to its publication. That is not the case.
The commission, which has been investigating clerical child sex abuse in the archdiocese between January 1st, 1975, and April 30th, 2004, is expected to report early in the new year.
Archbishop Martin is to meet Dublin's priests at a number of gatherings before Christmas, in anticipation of the report's publication. There were similar meetings between the priests of Ferns diocese and its then apostolic administrator Bishop Eamonn Walsh prior to the publication of the Ferns report there in 2005.
In his "private and confidential" letter to Dublin's priests, Archbishop Martin said statistics showed that at least 400 men and women had suffered trauma as a result of sex abuse by priests working in the archdiocese. He said, as quoted in the Irish Catholic, "this is a staggering figure and most certainly not final''. The figure applies to statistics going back to 1940.
"We as priests are extremely upset and offended by what has happened through the actions of some. The good name of all priests and indeed of our priesthood has been tarnished," he wrote.
Anticipating the commission report, he said: "Suffering will be reawakened in the hearts of many by the publication of the report."
