IRELAND
Irish Central
PATRICK COUNIHAN @irishcentral February 16, 2014
Religious bodies in Ireland used ‘covert means’ to limit the power of government investigations into clerical sex abuse according to a former Catholic Church watchdog.
Ian Elliott, the author of several reports into child sexual abuse in Irish dioceses, has made the claims in an interview with the Sunday Independent.
In response, a government adviser has expressed ‘profound concern’ to the newspaper over the claims made by Elliott.
Elliott told the Sunday Independent that the work of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church was undermined by religious bodies consistently cutting its funding.
Leader of the board’s investigations until last year, Elliott told the paper that believes that efforts have been made to curtail further probes by starving investigators of resources.
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