Uncovering the full extent of clerical child sex abuse must be an all-Ireland exercise, writes Patsy McGarry.
Tuesday night's BBC Spotlight programme highlighted once more the difficulties facing the Hussey Commission which may yet consign its role to irrelevance. Set up by the Catholic bishops last June, though operating independently of them, it is to conduct an audit of how clerical child sex abuse complaints have been handled by the church on the island of Ireland over recent decades and is to present an interim report next February. Its final report and recommendations are to be presented a year later, by the end of February 2004.
Considering the anticipated volume of work to be undertaken, this of itself appears a tall order for the commission. But it faces greater problems. For instance, where there are no diocesan records of such complaints, though these may have emerged through Garda investigations, what is it to do? Nothing it seems.
It is after all an "audit", as the bishops told us at its launch. An audit, and let us remember how carefully the bishops choose their words, notates what exists only. So presumably, as far as the Hussey commission interim and final reports are concerned, it will be as though Father Eugene Green of the Raphoe diocese never existed.
As the programme was told, there are no records in the diocesan files in Raphoe of the activities of one of the most notorious and most violent of convicted clerical child abusers in the State.
Nor of any concerns or complaint about him made to senior clergy in the diocese, some as early as 1971.
There are similarities with the case of Father Patrick Hughes in Dublin. There were no records of complaints made about him by the parents of a victim in 1974 in the files of the Dublin archdiocese. Hence, in 1988, the newly appointed archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell, could give a reference so the priest could serve in San Diego in California, in November of that year.
Father Hughes's abuse came to light again in 1995 when a solicitor for the victim wrote to the archdiocese. This led to the priest being recalled from the United States and his admission that he had been sent by the diocesan authorities for treatment in 1974 and thereafter moved to another parish (where he abused again). He made a private settlement of £50,000, plus £6,000 legal costs, with the victim, funded by himself, according to the archdiocese.
If there are now diocesan files relating to Father Hughes, they exist only because of legal intervention by the victim in 1995. What of other probable cases, where there were no such interventions by victims and their families?
There is the case of Father Noel Reynolds in the Dublin archdiocese, as revealed on Prime Time two weeks ago. Despite the then parish priest of Rathnew, Co Wicklow, Father Arthur O'Neill, expressing concerns about this man's activities in 1995, nothing happened and there are no indications that any record was kept of those concerns. Nor is it clear that diocesan files recorded Father Reynolds's admission some years later that he had abused 100 children.
It is likely that 1997 complaints against him in Glendalough were recorded, as on foot of these he was removed to serve later at the National Rehabilitation Institute in Dún Laoghaire and removed once again in 1998 when the gardaí became involved. Or is this so?
No less a personage than Father Tom Stack, the well-known parish priest at Milltown, asserted on Liveline last week that possibly Father Reynolds was not completely compos mentis when he made those admissions and might have been in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease from which he later died.
This muddying of the bona fides of Father Reynolds's victims and other people making allegations against the priest caused outrage. But Father Stack said he was reflecting what "priests are saying". If priests are saying this, is it possibly because there are no records of the admissions.
All these cases illustrate it is essentially an untrustworthy exercise to rely on the church's files if we are to get the full picture of the extent of clerical child sex abuse on this island over recent decades.
The Hussey Commission is also totally dependent on the co-operation of each diocesan bishop, among whom there is divergence of opinion on the extent of the co-operation they should give the commission. Further it has no powers of investigation or compellability. In such circumstances the State must become involved either through the proposed standing commissioner or an inquiry or Garda investigation. Or ideally a combination of some of the above.
This must involve the statutory authorities in both jurisdictions on the island, as many dioceses cross the Border, with bishops resident in the other jurisdiction.
Clerical child sex abuse is an all-Ireland problem. Uncovering its full extent must be an all-island exercise, involving the statutory authorities in both jurisdictions.