GARDAÍ INVESTIGATING allegations of clerical sex abuse in the diocese of Cloyne are to prepare files for the DPP after interviewing a retired priest about allegations that he abused two young females.
The priest, who is in his 70s, yesterday attended voluntarily at Mallow Garda station in north Cork where he was interviewed by detectives for several hours about allegations of abuse made against him by two women.
The women came forward separately in the past three months.
They made formal complaints to gardaí investigating allegations of clerical sex abuse in the diocese of Cloyne that they were sexually abused by the priest in the early 1970s.
One of the woman alleged that she was sexually assaulted by the priest while in her mid-teens in the early 1970s. The other woman alleged she was sexually assaulted in the early 1970s while she was aged in her early 20s.
Yesterday’s interviewing of the retired priest comes in the wake of controversy over the manner in which the Bishop of Cloyne, Dr John Magee, handled previous allegations of clerical sex abuse by two priests in the diocese.
Last December, the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church was highly critical of the way Bishop Magee handled a series of complaints of sexual abuse.
