The Catholic Diocese of Dublin is to establish a service to assist those who have suffered clerical child sex abuse in Dublin.
The network will be designed by the victims of abuse and is being established on foot of consultation between the Church and Mrs Marie Collins and Mr Ken Reilly, themselves victims of abuse.
Following meetings last year with Cardinal Desmond Connell and a number of Church representatives and other groups, Mrs Collins and Mr Reilly expressed serious concerns about what they saw as the inadequate pastoral support from the Diocese to those who have suffered abuse.
The Cardinal subsequently made a commitment to set up a support network for those who have suffered abuse in the Diocese.
The Cardinal said today: "I now realise that the diocese will only be able to provide an appropriate service to those who have suffered abuse if it has been designed from their perspective.
"Their feelings and their experiences throughout the time-span of the abuse they have suffered, and its consequences, must be allowed to contribute to the shape and provision of this service and the way in which it is monitored, once it has been set up," he added.
The service will become the responsibility of the Director of the Diocesan Child Protection Service.
In the last 50 years, 35 priests from the Diocese of Dublin have had allegations of child abuse made against them and 29 cases involving allegations against diocesan priests are closed with 30 cases involving allegations against diocesan priests still continuing.