IRELAND
National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church
Overview
On the 5th September a further seven Safeguarding Review Reports are being published. They comprise four dioceses and three religious congregations. The dioceses included are Kildare and Leighlin, Limerick, Cork and Ross, and Clonfert. The religious congregations are the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans), the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC), and the male Dominicans. The inclusion for the first time of three religious bodies represented an important development for us which threw up a number of issues.
Overall, the findings are mixed with some examples of good practice and sound development across the different Church authorities. This is to be very much welcomed and built upon in the coming months. However, there were also situations discovered that were very poor and these have to be learnt from. All allegations that were examined within the Review process have been reported to the appropriate statutory authorities. Sadly, some of these had been very much delayed. (All seven reports are posted on our website.)
Experience drawn from the first tranche of Reviews highlighted the benefits of openness to scrutiny. The willingness of each of the dioceses to share the findings of their individual reports and to be available to be questioned on them was welcomed by many. This transparency was matched by a commitment to implement fully any recommendations that had been made through the review process. It is gratifying to report that these have been acted upon and each of those dioceses are now in a stronger position with regard to their safeguarding capacity and practice than was the case when the reviews were undertaken initially.
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