Bishop defends handling of sex abuse case
A complaint was made to gardaí in 2002 about Con Desmond, a priest attached to Bishop Walsh’s Killaloe diocese, and he was subsequently given a three-year suspended sentence last month after pleading guilty to the sexual abuse of a 10-year-old boy in the early 1980s.
Last night, Bishop Walsh said in a statement that he had no knowledge of any child abuse committed by Con Desmond before or after he was a priest in his diocese until gardaí told him about the complaint in October of 2002.
The offences happened when Con Desmond was principal of the De La Salle boys’ primary school in Stephen Street, Waterford city.
Fr Desmond had approached Bishop Walsh in 1995, following extensive publicity about child sexual abuse, and said he was worried about something which had happened while he was teaching as a De La Salle brother, before he became a priest and was sent to the Co Clare parish of Kilmaley in 1990.
Bishop Walsh insisted Fr Desmond see a psychiatrist and, after an assessment, this psychiatrist reported verbally to the bishop that he was satisfied that Con Desmond did not constitute a danger to children.
In light of this positive psychiatric report, the fact that he himself had received no complaint against the priest and the fact that Fr Desmond did not divulge anything in 1995 regarding child sexual abuse other than saying he felt “under stress” because of media publicity of the subject, Bishop Walsh did not remove the priest from the ministry.
Fr Desmond was made parish priest of Killimer in 2001 but was suspended from clerical duties in 2002, pending an investigation, following complaints from a former pupil in Waterford.
