'Regret' as report not published in full

The Irish Times - Thursday, November 26, 2009PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent

THE DUBLIN Archdiocese Commission of Investigation has expressed regret that “due to circumstances outside its control” its report will not be published in full today.

Acknowledging the disappointment this would cause, it said this would also mean that “a full picture is not available” where the actions of some people in church and State authorities were concerned. It also described as “a cause of great regret” the leaking of the report, or parts of it, to a newspaper last weekend.

The report into how allegations of clerical child sex abuse were handled by church and State authorities in Dublin’s Catholic Archdiocese will be published this afternoon by Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern and Minister of State for Children Barry Andrews.

In its statement last night, the commission said “as is clear from the judgment . . . issued on November 19th, decisions were made by the DPP after the report was delivered to the Minister and those decisions could not have been taken into account by the commission in its report”.

It realised this would mean that some people “will be disappointed to discover that, because of recent directions of the High Court, the parts of the report relating to them are not being published”. However, it wished to assure those people “such publication will eventually occur as this is a requirement of the legislation” governing all commissions of investigation.

It recognised that complainants concerned “are likely to suffer the greatest disappointment” but went on to note that “there are also people in church and State authorities about whose actions a full picture is not available because of present exclusions”.

Referring to media leaks, the commission pointed out that for three and a half years it had been “in possession of extremely sensitive information which it had guarded well”. It was “a cause of great regret” to it, therefore, that the report, or parts of it, were leaked last weekend.

It said those responsible for the leak clearly took no account of the distress that its partial publication could cause to the complainants and to those whose actions were subjected to scrutiny in the report.

The commission was chaired by Ms Justice Yvonne Murphy and included barrister Ita Mangan and solicitor Hugh O’Neill. Their report is believed to be over 700 pages long and deals with a sample of 46 priests against whom allegations were made.

The commission was set up in March 2006 and its completed report was presented to the Minister for Justice on July 21st. Its investigation covered the period from January 1st, 1975, to April 30th, 2004, though some earlier allegations re-emerged in that period.

It addressed how allegations were dealt with by four archbishops, including the Most Rev John Charles McQuaid, the Most Rev Dermot Ryan, the Most Rev Kevin McNamara and Cardinal Desmond Connell, all of whom were auxiliary bishops of Dublin over the period as well as chancellors of the archdiocese.