Justice denied again

VICTIMS of clerical child sex abuse are set for another let-down with the disclosure that the Government is planning only a non-statutory inquiry on foot of the Bermingham report on the Fr Sean Fortune scandal.

A spokesman confirmed the Cabinet had discussed the report in recent days and hoped to set up the inquiry into the handling of Fr Fortune and other paedophile priests in the Ferns Diocese before the end of the year.

The decision will bitterly disappoint victims’ groups who insist the only way the Catholic Church’s concealment of abuse complaints can be properly robed is by garda investigation or statutory inquiry with all the legal powers of a tribunal like those chaired by Justices Flood and Moriarty into planning and political corruption.