A VICTIM of serial child sex abuser Fr Brendan Smyth has claimed how information he gave to a Catholic Church inquiry team, which included current primate Cardinal Seán Brady, was not passed on to parents of some of the victims of the paedophile priest.
Brendan Boland from Co Louth, who was abused by Smyth as a 12-year-old, recounted how two of these victims, a boy from Belfast and a boy from Cavan, continued to be abused by the priest after the inquiry group, which comprised three priests, completed its work.
The allegations were made in a BBC This World documentary, The Shame of the Catholic Church, broadcast on BBC Northern Ireland last night.
The programme expands on information disclosed in 2010 about how the information compiled by the canonical inquiry in 1975, to which Mr Boland gave evidence, was not passed on to gardaí. That disclosure led to calls for Cardinal Brady to resign.
Last night’s programme contains new information that parents of the victims who were identified by Mr Boland to the 1975 inquiry were not informed about this abuse.
A spokesman for Cardinal Brady, speaking yesterday evening before the programme was broadcast, said that the then Fr Brady was acting as a notetaker for the inquiry and that his responsibility, as part of that team, was to complete a report for the late Bishop of Kilmore Francis McKiernan.
The spokesman said: “Even according to today’s State and church guidelines, Fr Brady would not be the person with responsibility for making a report to the civil authorities.
“That responsibility at the time rested with the only people who had the authority to stop Brendan Smyth, namely the Abbot of his Monastery in Kilnacrott , to whom Bishop McKiernan reported the evidence collected by Fr Brady.”
He added: “It is also important to note that those who were in charge of the church inquiry in 1975 and the then Fr Seán Brady, who was asked to assist in it as a ‘notary’ or note taker, was working without the benefit of any guidelines on responding to abuse of children from either the State or the church.
“It would be unreasonable and grossly unfair to judge the actions of those at that time by the standards of the clear guidance from the State and the church that only came into existence some 20 years later.
“Prior to and following the church inquiry in 1975, Fr Brady was not aware of any additional allegations concerning Brendan Smyth.”
However, the revelations in the documentary are likely to put further pressure on Cardinal Brady and the church authorities, particularly over the disclosure that parents of the children were not informed of the abuse.
A Belfast man, who as a boy was abused by Smyth, appeared on camera but with his face shielded.
Mr Boland said he told the inquiry about the abuse of this boy when he spoke to the inquiry in 1975. However, the programme stated that the parents of the Belfast boy were not informed of the abuse and he was sexually abused for a further year after the inquiry by Smyth.
Moreover, Smyth abused the sister of the Belfast boy for seven years up until 1982. And, in addition, Smyth abused four of the boy’s first cousins for a period up until 1988.
Reporter Darragh McIntyre said he spoke to all the children identified by Mr Boland to the inquiry, and discovered that four of them were abused by Smyth and two continued to be abused after the inquiry.
“They all say that, to the best of their knowledge, their families were not warned in any way about Smyth,” said McIntyre.
Smyth was jailed, first in 1994 in Northern Ireland and then in the Republic for his crimes of the sexual abuse of children for over 40 years.
He died in prison in 1997.
