Hospital opens investigation into paedophile priest’s time as chaplin

A HOSPITAL where a paedophile priest worked is to contact dozens of families to investigate whether patients were abused there.

The National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH) in Dun Laoghaire will undertake a review of all children who attended there while the late Fr Noel Reynolds was chaplain.

It follows last week’s discovery by the hospital authorities that the Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell, had failed to inform them about what he called

Fr Reynolds’s “inappropriate behaviour”.

The NRH will contact several dozen patients under the age of 16 who would have been treated in the hospital’s small, six-bed children’s unit during Fr Reynolds’s ministry, which began in 1997.

NRH authorities are anxious to find out if any of the children in their care were abused after it emerged that Fr Reynolds had admitted interfering with more than 100 children in eight different parishes.

However, the centre’s director of nursing, Eilish Macklin, declined to comment on whether the hospital had been contacted directly by either Cardinal Connell or one of his representatives since last Thursday’s Prime Time programme on RTÉ highlighted Fr Reynolds’s case.

Dr Connell was subsequently forced to issue a public apology over his failure to notify the NRH that

Fr Reynolds was reassigned to the centre because of concerns about his behaviour in his previous parish in Glendalough, Co Wicklow. The cardinal admitted he was wrong not to have informed the NRH that he was aware of complaints about Fr Reynolds since 1995.

Although some of the children who attended the NRH at the time would still be receiving treatment at the hospital, Ms Macklin said she was unaware of any allegations against Fr Reynolds from past or present patients.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Catholic church claimed reports that Cardinal Connell had been heckled while presiding at a mass to celebrate the 24th anniversary of the election of Pope John Paul II on Saturday evening were “out of proportion”.

Several people in the congregation in Dublin’s Pro Cathedral cried out “it’s too late” after the cardinal repeated an apology about failing to deal effectively with paedophile priests. The spokesman said the cardinal was applauded by the congregation when he finished speaking.

He dismissed suggestions that the cardinal was reconsidering his position after Prime Time revealed that the Archdiocese of Dublin is facing 450 separate legal actions by victims of paedophile priests.

Justice Minister Michael McDowell is due to meet with his Cabinet colleagues tomorrow to discuss fresh calls for public inquiries into church scandals. Yesterday, the director of victims’ group One in Four, Colm O’Gorman, said they wished to meet with Mr McDowell to discuss expanding the State inquiry into clerical abuse.