THE FINDINGS of reviews into child-safeguarding practices since 1975 will be published this morning by four Catholic dioceses and three religious congregations.
This second tranche of such reviews by the church’s child protection watchdog, the National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC), includes religious congregations for the first time. The reports will be put on the groups’ respective websites at 11am.
The first tranche of such reviews, involving the six dioceses of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, Derry, Dromore, Kilmore, Raphoe and Tuam Archdiocese, was published on their websites last November.
The four dioceses expected to publish reviews this morning are Clonfert in east Galway, Cork and Ross, Kildare and Leighlin, and Limerick. The religious congregations expected to do so are the Dominicans, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and the Spiritans (Holy Ghost Fathers).
Two of the dioceses, Limerick, and Kildare and Leighlin, have been without a bishop since the resignations of Bishop of Limerick Donal Murray and Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin Jim Moriarty in December 2009 following publication of the Murphy report. Both were auxiliary bishops in Dublin during the period investigated by the Murphy Commission.
The Spiritan (Holy Ghost) congregation runs some of the best-known schools in Ireland, including Blackrock College, St Mary’s, Templeogue College and St Michael’s in Dublin, as well as Rockwell College in Co Tipperary.
A former pupil of St Mary’s College in Rathmines, Mark Vincent Healy, who was abused while a pupil there, said last June he had established that as many as 12 Holy Ghost/Spiritan priests had been accused of abuse, whether in Ireland or Africa.
In March 2009, Fr Henry Maloney was convicted of abusing Mr Vincent Healy and another man, who died last June, when both were pupils at St Mary’s College, Rathmines, between 1969 and 1973.
Fr Maloney had already been convicted of child abuse in 2000. He taught at St Mary’s between 1968 and 1973, before being transferred to Sierra Leone.
In August of last year, it emerged that gardaí, the HSE and NBSC were investigating abuse allegations made by as many as 20 former students at the Sacred Heart College in Carrignavar, Co Cork. It is now a co-educational secondary school managed by Catholic Education, an Irish Schools Trust (CEIST), a trustee body for secondary schools of the Daughters of Charity, Presentation Sisters, Sisters of the Christian Retreat, Sisters of Mercy, and Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.
In June 2010, it emerged that the Bishop of Clonfert, Dr John Kirby, and the Redemptorist congregation there were refusing to remove two accused priests from its retreat centre at Esker which is attended by young people.
This was despite a strong recommendation for their removal by a lay group appointed by Bishop Kirby to address child protection in Clonfert diocese.
