Martin: I apologise unreservedly

ARCHBISHOP of Dublin Diarmuid Martin unequivocally apologised for the Church’s failure to prevent child abuse in the wake of the publication of chapter 19 of the Murphy report.

Dublin’s most senior Catholic cleric stated that the chapter unveiled “the tragic and shocking story of how a devious, predatory paedophile used the priesthood to gain access to young children and abuse them and how no one stopped him for years”.

In a statement Dr Martin said: “The first lesson to be learned from this is that in the cases of serial compulsive paedophiles, only decisive action is capable of stopping them ... Procrastination and indecisiveness are a part of a climate in which paedophiles flourish.”