Bishop never thought of leaving over scandal

Bishop of Clonfert John Kirby said it never occurred to him to consider resigning after it emerged he had moved two priests at the centre of child sex abuse allegations to other parishes.

He dismissed a suggestion that it was unwritten Church policy in the early 1990s to move priests suspected of child abuse to new parishes rather than report them to the gardaí.

Bishop Kirby, 73, said that 20 years ago he “hadn’t a clue” about how paedophiles operated, and thought paedophilia was “a friendship that crossed a boundary line”.