The Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Rev Diarmuid Martin, has said there is nothing in the recommendations of the Catholic Church's Working Group on Child Protection which was not already in place in the Dublin archdiocese. Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent, reports.
The group disbanded last Thursday following lengthy disagreement with a church steering committee representating the Irish Bishops' Conference, CORI and the Irish Missionary Union over whether professionals or church leaders should decide how sex-abuse complaints are handled. It is understood the church representatives believed such control must rest with church leaders.
Archbishop Martin expressed "frustration" that, as vice-president of the Irish Bishops' Conference, he had not seen relevant working group documentation until Monday of this week.
He said the working group's recommendations were comparable to those being implementated by the Dublin archdiocese's Child Protection Office.
"I have no problem about having professional people coming in," he said.
He also said "an outside person" had been appointed in the archdiocese to conduct an audit of all its files.
He believed this was not just best practice where the protection of children was concerned, but also when it came to safeguarding priests. It would enable trust and confidence to grow.
Where concerns had been expressed by priests about colleagues who had had to step aside from ministry when allegations were made, he indicated there were fewer grounds for such concerns now, as in most cases gardaí were professional, and leaks, which were damaging to falsely accused priests, had been stopped.