Support groups seek way forward after Ferns

SURVIVORS of sexual abuse and the public are being asked to respond to a nationwide trawl of opinion on the way forward in the wake of the Ferns Report into clerical sexual abuse in Wexford.

The support group, One in Four, will hold the second in a series of public meetings in Cork tomorrow. The meeting at The Commons Inn, Mallow Road, will also debate the concerns that exist in other dioceses over sexual abuse.

Group director Colm O’Gorman said the statutory inquiry into clerical sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Dublin and an audit of child protection practice in all Irish Roman Catholic dioceses are an important response in the wake of the Ferns Report. “The Dublin Inquiry will be very significant. It will be hugely so, enormous even. Ferns showed us the purpose of these inquiries. In Ferns we thought we had six abusive clergy. It turned out we had 26. In Dublin, we’ve heard of 67 priests. The reality could be far greater.”