THE Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, has appointed a retired judge to inquire into allegations that vulnerable youths were passed from State care into the control of a paedophile priest.
The inquiry centres around allegations by a number of former residents at State run institutions in the Waterford and Kilkenny area, dating from at least the early 1980s.
The allegations initially emerged after a former resident of one of the institutions made detailed allegations against the priest from Kilkenny, who was subsequently convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison.
The victim, now 32, and who has himself come before the courts on charges of indecency, has given very detailed accounts of being raped and otherwise sexually abused while in State run institutions.
He alleges he was sexually abused by two Catholic clergy men and a lay social worker in Dublin, and at a Waterford institution, where he had been placed while on probation. Some of the institutions he lived in as a child have since been the subject of abuse allegations from other sources.
He says that in 1985, after being abused by the priest in the Waterford institution, he was then handed over to the control of the same priest at his home in Kilkenny. The priest, it has been established in court, kept the young man in a caravan at the bottom of the garden and sexually abused him over a 10 year period.
The victim suffers psychological problems as a result of abuse, which began at the hands of his father when he was as young as four. However, he is known to have extremely detailed recall of events in his life.
The inquiry has been going on since August, it is understood, although no public mention was made until the Department of Justice responded to press inquiries this week.
However, the Department confirmed yesterday that a retired District Court judge, Mr William O'Connell (74), has been asked by Mrs Owen to carry out an informal and independent inquiry" into the allegations. No terms of reference were supplied, the Department said.
It is believed the inquiry might be confined to the allegations' concerning the abuse suffered by a number of former residents of the Waterford institution, which was run by the local health authority but paid for by the Department of Justice.
Last week, Mr O'Connell wrote to the man at the centre of the allegations in St Canice's Psychiatric Hospital, Kilkenny, asking for a meeting the following day in Kilkenny Courthouse.
The man, whom the authorities acknowledge does not suffer from a psychiatric illness, is in St Canice's Psychiatric Hospital while the Southern Eastern Health Board attempts to provide more suitable accommodation for him. He is being chemically sedated with prozac, valium and a drug to suppress sex drive.
He was said to have been greatly distressed by the letter from Mr O'Connell, fearing he was about to be sent to prison.
The local circuit court has already directed that the man will not be sent to prison because of his history of appalling abuse and the disastrous" effect prison would have on him. The offences for which he appeared before the court were also described as very minor and did not involve any physical abuse of the two boys concerned.
The meeting arranged in the former judge's letter was subsequently called off.