Ferns: A conspiracy of silence
The legislation is to be introduced following the litany of abuse that took place in the Diocese of Ferns over a 40-year period and the failure of the Church, State and society to prevent it.
The 271-page Ferns Inquiry report, published yesterday, revealed a shocking betrayal of trust by senior clergy, gardaí and health service officials.
The inquiry identified more than 100 allegations of child sexual abuse by 21 priests in Ferns between 1962 and 2002.
It was critical of Bishops Donal Herlihy and Brendan Comiskey, finding that they placed "the interests of individual priests ahead of those of the community in which they served".
The inaction of gardaí was also criticised. Prior to 1990, individual gardaí showed "reluctance" to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by members of the clergy.
Some complaints to gardaí prior to 1988 "do not appear to have been recorded in any garda file and were not investigated or pursued in an appropriate manner", the report said.
The damning report found the then South Eastern Health Board took seven years to offer counselling and support to some children who reported abuse.
Only three of the 21 priests were prosecuted. Fr Donal Collins and Fr James Doyle pleaded guilty and were convicted; the case against Fr Sean Fortune was struck out following his suicide in 1999.
Ten of the priests are dead, but prosecutions may follow against a number of the remaining nine, who deny the allegations, as the Government has referred the report to the DPP.
The Government said in a statement it "condemned in the strongest possible terms the repeated failure and gross derelictions of duties of those in a position of trust in the Diocese of Ferns who engaged in acts of child abuse or failed to take effective steps to defend and vindicate the rights of children concerned".
It also signalled its intention to introduce laws to combat child sexual abuse.
The ISPCC said the report was a "damning indictment" of Irish society's failure to protect children.
The Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan, said the Constitution needed to be amended to include "express rights for children".
The charity Barnardos said mandatory reporting of child sex abuse and a raft of other measures were now necessary.
The Government will bring forward legislation to empower the High Court, upon application by a relevant body, to bar a person from having unsupervised access to children where "reasonable grounds exist" to believe that person may abuse them.
The report made other recommendations, all of which the Government said it would implement.
But the report did not restrict culpability to Ferns.
It stated: "With the benefit of hindsight, it is possible to see the Church authorities, the medical profession and society generally failed to appreciate the horrendous damage which the sexual abuse of children can and does cause."
The current Bishop of Ferns, Eamonn Walsh whom the inquiry praised for his handling of the affair since his instalment in 2002 last night labelled the report "a litany of horrible, horrible gross abuse".
Among the cases detailed was a girl raped from the age of 11 until she was made pregnant at 14 and forced to flee to England
"It is incomprehensible, it is inexcusable and it is totally inappropriate. I unreservedly apologise," Bishop Walsh said.
"We, as an organisation in the Church, devoted our attention to the priest offenders and forgot about those who were the most vulnerable. We did the exact opposite of what we were ordained to do."
The Diocese of Ferns is to establish an independent counselling service for anyone affected by the issues raised in the report.
Freephone 1800 33 1234 from 11am to midnight.
