‘Redress victims before embassy reopens’

The embassy to the Vatican should not reopen until the Catholic Church has paid compensation to every Irish victim of clerical child sexual abuse, a Fine Gael TD has said.

Tom Barry said the ongoing fallout from the Church’s handling of the paedophile priest Brendan Smyth showed how “very, very poorly” it had dealt with the abuse issue as a whole.

Mr Barry said: “All that can be done at this stage is redress to the victims. Dealing with that, and sorting that situation out, would show a penance on behalf of the Church. The problem is, that has not occurred.”