Victims of clerical abuse tell of ordeal

DOZENS of victims of sexual abuse by clerics in a Wexford diocese are to give details of their ordeal to a state investigation within weeks.

But former Bishop of Ferns, Dr Brendan Comiskey, who resigned after a BBC documentary into the Church’s handling of the abuse, is not likely to be called back from the US to give his testimony until all victims have told of their ordeal. That is unlikely to happen until the end of October, at the earliest.

The Ferns inquiry wants to hear from anyone who can help establish the precise extent of the abuse.

Inquiry secretary Marian Shanley said the probe featured two phases.

The inquiry team has published a notice in newspapers, looking for written submissions from anyone who can help the team establish exactly what happened during one of the darkest eras in the diocese of Ferns. A research phase, which involves establishing the facts of exactly what happened to whom in the diocese and how matters were handled, is drawing to an end. The second and fact-finding phase is now about to begin.

Since the inquiry was set up at the end of March, teams of researchers for the inquiry have been trawling through huge volumes of highly confidential documents.

“We’ve been given a huge volume of files from the diocese, the Department of Health and the gardaí,” said Marian Shanley.

“We would be interested in hearing from the victims within the next month. We’ve set a September 12 deadline for documents. But that is not written in stone and is not a cut-off date."