A SECOND investigation into allegations concerning Finglas Children's Centre in Dublin in the 1980s is under way, the Department of Education has confirmed. A De La Salle brother working at the centre at the time has been suspended from St Patrick's Training School in west Belfast following contacts between the Department and the authorities in Northern Ireland.
The Department has not specified the nature of the allegations but said they related to 1988/89 and were received by the centre's director earlier this month.
The De La Salle Order ran the Finglas centre on behalf of the Department at the time. A separate inquiry began almost a year ago by the Eastern Health Board after it received a letter from the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern.
It arises from complaints by a former high-ranking civil servant at the Department, Ms Loreto Byrne, that allegations of abuse were not investigated at the time. The Department is understood to have supplied relevant files to the Garda.