Gardaí ‘knew of paedophile priest’

NORTHERN IRELAND
UTV

Police in the Republic of Ireland knew about the activities of notorious paedophile priest Brendan Smyth in the early 1970s, an inquiry has heard.

Confidential documents from a Dublin psychiatric hospital have revealed Fr Brendan Smyth, who went on to abuse hundreds of children over four decades, had asked to be admitted after coming to the attention of Gardaí in 1973.

Joseph Aiken, counsel for the inquiry said: “For some reason Brendan Smyth has asked the doctor looking after him to write a letter to Finglas Garda station to say that he is going to be taken in for some inpatient treatment.”

Smyth had been conducting a retreat in Finglas in July 1973.

The documents, which were only just released to the long-running Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry, also show how Smyth was officially diagnosed as a paedophile in 1974.

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