IRELAND
Irish Independent
Patricia Casey
PUBLISHED
21/02/2017
News items filled with details of sexual abuse allegations are well known to the Irish public. Throughout the 1990s our airwaves were filled with details of priests being charged with sexually abusing children under their charge as far back as the 1970s. We were horrified by these revelations, and several reports headed by judges on various diocese followed.
The possibility that there could be any false allegations was not countenanced and to have had the temerity to suggest this would have evoked public opprobrium and charges of being in denial about the reality of paedophilia.
Then there was the Fr Reynolds case. A priest on the missions was said to have raped a teenager and fathered a child on an RTÉ programme. Ultimately the allegation was false and he sued RTÉ. According to the Association of Catholic Priests, a number of their men have been falsely accused of child abuse by anonymous complainants. The gardaí have then been notified and with only the most cursory of attempts to verify the accuracy of the complaint, the priest is removed from duties and is left in an isolated state.
Removing a person accused of sexual abuse from duties is correct, provided that the possible veracity is established.
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