Victim 'feels no joy at resignation'

THE woman who received a public apology from Cardinal Desmond Connell said she felt no joy upon hearing of his resignation as Archbishop of Dublin.

Marie Collins said the cardinal was "the wrong man, in the wrong place at the wrong time" but that she was looking forward rather than back.

Archbishop Connell had failed to heed Ms Collins's warnings in 1995 about a priest who abused her when she was a 13-year-old hospital patient. The Archbishop did not remove Father Paul McGennis from his parish in the Dublin Diocese and did not hand over the church files to gardaí, despite claiming to have provided full co-operation.

Fr McGennis was later sentenced to 18 months in prison in 1998 for abusing Ms Collins and another woman.

She received a public apology from Cardinal Connell in 2002, which she believes was due to media pressure after an RTE Prime Time documentary.

The One in Four Group said Cardinal Connell's handling of abuse allegations had blighted his time as Archbishop of Dublin. But director Colm O'Gorman said he should not be made a scapegoat.

"This isn't all about Cardinal Connell's handling of particular cases. It is an institutional failure and a failure we see in dioceses around the world."

However, the Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA) group said it was impossible to forgive Cardinal Connell for his handling of the affair.