Court to decide on Murphy report chapter

Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent
7-12-2010
Irish Times

THE HIGH Court will this morning consider publishing chapter 19 of the Murphy report following the jailing yesterday of former priest Tony Walsh for 16 years, four suspended, for the sexual abuse of three boys.
On October 15th, 2009, Mr Justice Paul Gilligan of the High Court ruled chapter 19, which deals with abuse by Tony Walsh, and 21 other references to him, should not be published pending the outcome of three court cases then pending.

The Murphy report investigated how clerical child sex abuse allegations involving 46 priests in Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese were handled by church and State authorities between 1975 and 2004. Chapters 19 and 20 of the report were withheld when it was published on November 26th, 2009, pending the outcome of proceedings involving Walsh and another man. Proceedings in the other case are ongoing.

Yesterday, in the Circuit Criminal Court, Walsh was sentenced to 16 years on 17 counts of sexual abuse, including five counts of buggery on one boy. Walsh was put on the sex offenders register for life and will undergo two years’ probation supervision on his release.
In 1996, Walsh was convicted on 19 counts of abusing six victims and sentenced to 10 years, which was reduced to six years on appeal. He was released in 2001.

In a statement last night, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said the archdiocese “failed” the children abused by Walsh “and was too slow in recognising that . . . was a predatory paedophile”. Even when the extent of his paedophile activity was identified “this dangerous man was allowed to continue in ministry for many years with the consequent damage visited on children”. “I can only unreservedly apologise to the victims of this man for what they endured and for the way in which the diocese failed them,” Archbishop Martin said.

He hoped the “finality of the legal process will help bring them some sense of justice, of healing, of closure and hope for the future.”