IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
BY JIM CUSACK – 15 SEPTEMBER 2014
The Catholic Church is believed to have paid out up to €50m (£40m) in compensation to abuse victims since it was revealed former Cardinal Sean Brady had direct involvement in swearing two of the victims of paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth to secrecy.
Senior legal sources said there was a rush to settle the bulk of up to 300 high court cases in the Republic in which the former Archbishop of Armagh was nominally named as lead defendant on behalf of the Church.
Many of the cases had been before the court for more than a decade – some for up to 16 years – as the Church stonewalled the plaintiffs.
The case that exposed Brady’s direct involvement, where he was the note-taker in a case involving the boys raped by Smyth, had been before Dublin’s High Court for 13 years.
However, since Brady’s involvement came to light in March 2010, a considerable number of the cases that had been before the courts for years have been reported on official records as ending with “no orders made in this case”.
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