Unreported abuse files ‘may remain in dioceses’

FILES on teachers who abused pupils but were not reported to the gardaí may still be held in Catholic diocesan offices, a survivor’s representative has claimed.

Timothy O’Rourke, who represented a number of abuse victims of former teacher and Christian brother Donal Dunne, said he was aware of a number of such cases. He said that a number of previous bishops, in their role as school patrons, had removed teachers from duty in Catholic schools where they were alleged to have sexually abused their pupils.

But, Mr O’Rourke claimed, the lack of reporting to either the gardaí or the Department of Education meant schools in other dioceses where these teachers were subsequently employed would have had no knowledge of the allegations.

“There are files in diocesan offices which the department don’t know about and gardaí never knew about. There was a difficulty in the 1980s when I was trying to do something about this because it was harder to find victims of abuse,” he said.

“But they have come forward in their thousands and we now know the extent of the problem. I would ask that these files would be produced and made available to the authorities,” Mr O’Rourke said.

These cases may precede the introduction in 1991 of reporting procedures for alleged abuse in schools.

The Catholic Communications Office said it was not aware of such cases but a spokesperson said that any concerns should be brought to the attention of the gardaí and the health services.

He said that, since 1996, the Catholic framework for dealing with child abuse allegations requires mandatory reporting, something which does not apply to the State sector.

A garda spokesperson said the scenario suggested by Mr O’Rourke was speculative but that the first reaction of the Church or any other organisation to any known instance of alleged abuse should be to report it.