IRELAND
RTE News
Ireland’s Catholic Church-established watchdog on child sexual abuse is to ask the Government to give it statutory powers to allow it share information among church authorities concerning allegations against priests, religious and church workers.
Head of the watchdog Teresa Devlin announced the move at a public hearing of a Royal Commission in Australia which is reviewing institutional responses to child sexual abuse there.
She said it would involve her board using legislation adopted by the EU to assess whether sharing sensitive information about alleged abusers is more important than protecting a suspect’s privacy.
Giving testimony to the Royal Commission in Sydney earlier today, Ms Devlin – who is the chief Executive of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland – said some religious authorities in Ireland have concerns about sharing confidential information with her board because it is a non-statutory body.
The difficulties have surfaced publicly during the eight years of the board’s existence, but Ms Devlin said they are now affecting its efforts to persuade the 190 church bodies – including dioceses and orders – to agree a new memorandum of understanding with it based on revised standards of child protection which it produced in 2015.
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