The largest single settlement yet agreed in Ireland involving a clerical child sex abuse victim is due to be outlined to the High Court in Dublin this morning. The settlement is believed to amount to between €300,000 and €400,000.
It follows a civil action initiated in 1995 against Dublin's Catholic archdiocese by Mr Mervyn Rundle following his abuse by Father Thomas Naughton at a parish on the city's northside in 1985/86.
The settlement, agreed last week, is expected to involve a reading into the court record of an apology from Cardinal Desmond Connell to Mr Rundle and his family for the unnecessary grief caused them by the archdiocese's handling of their complaints of the abuse.
The settlement followed protracted and difficult negotiations and led at one stage to counsel for Mr Rundle seeking a court order for disclosure of documents which the archdiocese had problems locating up to then - some of the documents finally disclosed were said to be no longer extant.
Mr Rundle was nine when the abuse began in 1985. Father Naughton was then serving in Donnycarney parish, where Mr Rundle was an altar boy. The abuse, which continued through 1986, was severe and in 1998 led to Father Naughton receiving a three-year jail sentence.
This was reduced to two and a half years on appeal. The conviction, which only involved the abuse of Mr Rundle, followed a Garda investigation that began in 1995 when the Rundle family first reported the abuse to civil authorities.
Father Thomas Naughton sexually abused children throughout the 1980s across three parishes in the Dublin archdiocese. Complaints were made from each of the parishes to diocesan authorities at Archbishop's House in Drumcondra.
As revealed in the RTÉ's Prime Time "Cardinal Secrets" programme last October, the abuse began in the early 1980s at Valleymount parish in Wicklow. Parents there complained to the church authorities, including the then auxiliary bishop of Dublin Dr Donal Murray, currently Bishop of Limerick.
He was made aware of the complaints in 1983 and spoke to both Father Naughton and the local parish priest about them. Both firmly denied anything improper was going on. Bishop Murray told Prime Time he had also reported the matter to the then Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Dermot Ryan.
In 1984, an ex-garda living in Valleymount, Mr John Brennan, complained to the parish priest about Father Naughton. This followed complaints made to him by local people and by his own son about Father Naughton's behaviour towards altar boys.
The priest was moved to Donnycarney parish where he was given charge of altar boys, some of whom he began to abuse. In 1985, parents there, including Mr Rundle's parents, complained directly to Archbishop's House about the priest's behaviour. On being contacted at the time by the diocesan authorities, Father Naughton admitted the abuse and was sent for treatment.
Four months later he was again put back into parish work in Dublin - this time in Ringsend. There he resumed sexually abusing boys, targeting two altar boys in particular. After two years in Ringsend, and further complaints, he was removed from active parish work.
Gardaí began investigating Father Naughton's activities when Mervyn Rundle reported his abuse to them in 1995. A decade earlier, when aged 10, he, his father and a family friend had attended a particularly difficult meeting about his abuse by Father Naughton with the then chancellor of the archdiocese Monsignor Alex Stenson.
In 1995, Mervyn Rundle and his parents met Cardinal Connell about the abuse. The Cardinal was very apologetic. It was after that meeting, and when the Rundles heard Father Naughton was still saying Mass publicly as normal, that they went to the gardaí.
During the subsequent investigation Cardinal Connell did not inform gardaí that Father Naughton had admitted 10 years previously to abusing Mervyn Rundle. Despite this, Naughton was found guilty. After the case, Cardinal Connell issued a statement offering his pastoral support to those who had suffered.
On hearing this Mr John Brennan in Valleymount wrote to the Cardinal. He pleaded with him to search for other victims and explained the hurt that he and his family had suffered in their parish as a result of having reported Father Naughton's abuse of children 15 years previously.
