The former senior dean at St Patrick's College Maynooth, Father Gerard McGinnity, and a number of former seminarians there have said they will not co-operate with the McCullough inquiry set up by the college trustees in June to investigate events there 18 years ago.
In a period from 1983 to 1984, six senior seminarians approached nine bishop-trustees at the college with complaints about the sexual harassment of junior colleagues by the college vice-president at the time, Mgr Micheál Ledwith.
One bishop advised them to "go home and say your prayers". Another dismissed their complaints with "But he [Mgr Ledwith] is a distinguished international theologian".
Concerned about their own futures when they were ignored by the bishops, the seminarians went to the senior dean, Father McGinnity, for protection and to have their concerns raised by him.
He made representations on their behalf. Later, due to pressure Father McGinnity went on sabbatical. Before his sabbatical year ended, he was informed that he would not be returning to Maynooth and was appointed a curate in Armagh diocese. That same year, 1985, Mgr Ledwith was appointed president at Maynooth by the bishops.
In June 1994 Mgr Ledwith left the post prematurely, having paid money to and concluded a confidential agreement with a seminarian who claimed he had been sexually abused by the monsignor when a minor.
Following reports about these events in The Irish Times earlier this year the college trustees, a body of 17 bishops chaired by Cardinal Connell, set up an inquiry under Mr Denis McCullough SC.
It was to "seek to establish whether and when such complaints were made to any bishop, officer or trustee of the college, their nature and the steps taken in response to them".
Yesterday Father McGinnity said he had written to Mr McCullough expressing his reservations in principle on being party to "an investigation by the bishops into themselves".
He also said he was refusing to co-operate with the inquiry because of "repeated attempts by individual members of the church to suppress the truth by attempting to undermine my credibility".
It also emerged last night that of the six former seminarians concerned just one has co-operated with Mr McCullough. Three have indicated unequivocally that they will not be doing so.
