'Lack of Resources for Church Body'

Irish Independent
June 6, 2012

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/lack-of-resources-for-church-body-3130597.html

THE Catholic Church's child protection watchdog has expressed concern about the level of resources available to it as 237 new cases of abuse were reported in the last year.

Ian Elliott, the chief executive of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, said the body has struggled to keep abreast of all the work. He said 237 new abuse cases were reported in 2011 against 196 priests and religious. Six related to the period from 2000 onwards.

Think tank to discuss voting age

Reducing the voting age from 18 to 17 and cutting the president's term of office to five years will be the first items discussed by the new Constitutional think tank.

The Government decided yesterday to set up the promised Constitutional Convention in the coming weeks with 99 members -- 33 politicians and 66 members of the public.

Debt calculation should be CSO duty

RESPONSIBILITY for calculating the government debt should shift to the Central Statistics Office after last year's €3.6bn accounting blunder by finance chiefs, a report has recommended.

The external review into the error is due to be published tomorrow. A spokesman for the Department of Finance said it would not be commenting. The blunder, which was made public last November, meant the national debt was overstated by €3.6bn.

Investigation into airport incident

THE Air Accident Investigation Unit is to probe an incident at an airport yesterday, in which a a turbo-prop aircraft with 59 passengers on board partially ended up on the grass as it was taxiing at a slow speed towards take-off.

No one was injured in the incident.

Mum dies after collision with car

A mother out cycling with her daughter died in hospital yesterday after they were both hit by a 4x4 vehicle.

The collision happened about 7.40pm on Monday night at New Line Road in Wexford. The victim was named locally last night as Lucia Kearns (46) of Murrintown, Co Wexford. She died in Wexford General Hospital last night. Her 16-year-old daughter Gina has been discharged from hospital. Gardai are still trying to establish the exact details of the fatal crash.