IRELAND
The Journal
ARCHBISHOP DIARMUID MARTIN has defended the right of the Association for Catholic Priests (ACP) to request a review of the Murphy Report into sexual abuse but has said that any priests who engaged with the Murphy Commission were always entitled to legal representation.
His comments come in light of a report commissioned by the ACP which concluded that the Murphy Report “went well beyond its mandate” to “name, blame and shame individuals for their role in any such failure of institutional response” to sexual abuse.
The Murphy report was first published in 2009 to examine the handling of child sexual abuse claims in the diocese of Dublin.
The 42-page review undertaken by retired High Court Judge Fergal Sweeney and titled “Commissions of Investigation and Procedural Fairness” said that the Murphy Commission exceeded its brief by:
“building up and making a “case” (called “the Commission’s Assessment”) against individual clerics who testified before the Commission, instead of being “concerned only with the institutional response to complaints, suspicions and knowledge of child sexual abuse.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.