Catholic League president Bill Donohue has today backed recent comments made by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin pointing to a “justified resentment among priests and … committed Catholics”.

A prominent US canon lawyer has said he suspects “there is a great deal more” to the story of what is happening in the Maynooth seminary.

A former senior dean at St Patrick’s College Maynooth said he has a sense of “déjà vu” when reading of the current culture at the college and that he was “shafted” by his superiors when he raised concerns about complaints made against a vice-president there in the 1980s.

Pressure is growing on the Government to act immediately to take in refugees risking death to reach mainland Europe instead of waiting for instructions to come from the EU.