IRELAND
Journal
THE BOARD SET up to oversee the improvement of child safeguarding measures within the Catholic Church in Ireland has noted that it has no power in reviewing cases where Irish priest are accused of abusing children abroad.
The National Board of Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church of Ireland (NBSCCCI) said today that there was an “anomaly” in how safeguarding standards could be applied when a religious organisation is based in Ireland – but carries out its work outside the country.
The NBSCCCI was speaking in relation to the audit of St Patrick’s Missionary Society – also known as the Kiltegan Fathers. There have been 50 allegations made about 14 members of the Society since 1975 but three allegations were not reported in Ireland as they occurred in “other jurisdictions”.
The reviewers of the Society’s efforts were concerned that abuse allegations made outside Ireland “has not in every case given rise to an appropriate and robust response” from the Kiltegan Fathers HQ in Wicklow. In one case, several reports made in the mid to late 1960s of sexual activity between a Kiltegan Father and a number of young Goan boys in Kenya were not looked into until 1997, and the priest in questions remained part of the Kiltegan Fathers until 2002.
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