A SETTLEMENT has been agreed by Cardinal Seán Brady with a Co Louth man who was one of two teenagers he swore to secrecy in 1975 following his investigation into their allegations of abuse by Fr Brendan Smyth.
Brendan Boland (50) sued Cardinal Brady, the diocese of Kilmore and Smyth’s Norbertine Order.
The settlement will be concluded in the High Court this morning, a spokesman for the Catholic bishops confirmed. Afterwards Mr Boland will issue “a comprehensive statement”, his solicitor Paul Horan, of Horan and Sons solicitors in Galway, said yesterday.
In June 2010 Cardinal Brady reached an out-of-court settlement, said to be worth more than €250,000, with another teenager abused by Smyth.
Following the disclosures, Cardinal Brady said he had done his duty by informing his then bishop of Smyth’s abuse. He was not the designated authority to report to the Garda and Smyth’s Norbertine Order was responsible for the priest after removal of his priestly functions in Kilmore and other dioceses, he said.
Marie McCormack sued the cardinal as well as the diocese of Kilmore and the Norbertine Order. It followed her being sexually abused by Smyth between 1970 and 1975. The settlement was made without admission of liability and included apologies by the defendants.
It was the High Court action by Ms McCormack which led to disclosures in March 2010 that Cardinal Brady had been involved in canonical investigations into abuse allegations against Smyth in 1975 which involved two young people. He believed both of them at the time and swore them to secrecy at the end of his inquiry in Kilmore diocese.
Ms McCormack, who lives in Canada, said after the settlement that 35 years after the abuse, her marriage and quality of life had been greatly affected by the trauma she suffered, which began when she was 14 and continued until she was 20.
