THE LONG-AWAITED report into the handling of clerical sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne is to be published this afternoon.
The report was approved for publication at the Cabinet meeting yesterday. The Commission of Investigation Report into the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne, the report’s full title, will be published by Minister for Justice Alan Shatter and Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald.
Commissioned in January 2009 by then minister for children Barry Andrews, it was presented to then minister for justice Dermot Ahern on December 23rd last.
In extending the remit of the Murphy commission to include Cloyne, as well as the Dublin archdiocese, Mr Andrews was responding to public outcry which followed publication in December 2008 of a review of child protection practices in Cloyne by the Catholic Church’s own child protection watchdog, the National Board for Safeguarding Children.
It found child protection practices there to be “inadequate and in some respects dangerous”.
The commission was asked by the Government to investigate the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations in Cloyne by church and State authorities between January 1st, 1996 (when the church’s first published guidelines, its Framework Document, came into play) and February 1st, 2009.
In March 2009, Bishop of Cloyne John Magee stood aside from duties in the diocese so he could co-operate more fully with the commission, and Archbishop of Cashel Dermot Clifford was appointed as apostolic administrator to the diocese. In March 2010, Bishop Magee resigned.
Today’s report is understood to include findings on all 19 priests who faced allegations over the 13-year period investigated. Findings against one priest are being withheld as he is before the courts.
