Ahern asks silent victims to come forward

JUSTICE Minister Dermot Ahern has asked the still silent victims of Dublin’s paedophile priests to come forward and help put the perpetrators behind bars.

He said abusers should be pursued relentlessly and that “a collar will protect no criminal”.

Mr Ahern said neither the Church who facilitated the crimes or gardaí who assisted the cover-up would be shielded from the courts.

“I want to be emphatic about one thing. It is not now, nor has it ever been acceptable, that institutions behave and are treated as being above the law of the state. This is a Republic. The people are sovereign. And no institution, no agency, no Church can be immune from that fact,” he said.

Launching the report of Judge Yvonne Murphy outside Government Buildings, he said that “evil after evil” was perversely protected for what was assumed to be the greater good. Mr Ahern pointed to a Government apology released at the same time and said as a human, Ms Justice Murphy’s report was difficult to read.

“I read the report as Justice Minister. But on a human level, as a father and as a member of this community, as I read it I felt a growing sense of revulsion and anger.

“Revulsion at the horrible evil acts committed against young children. Anger at how those children were then dealt with and how often abusers were left free to abuse. But the white heat of our anger should not for one minute deflect us from what needs to be done,” he said.

The report criticised the actions of gardaí who handled certain cases and who gave inside information to Church authorities.

Mr Ahern said it was not his position to tell the Gardaí what to do, however he said he expected any complaints against serving members, who did not investigate accusations, would be handed to the Garda Ombudsman.

“Anyone, irrespective of whether garda, state civil servant or indeed clergy are to be prosecuted and he [Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy] knows that. And that is his duty,” he said.

Mr Ahern said the Church had an obligation to help victims.

“Ultimately the Church authorities are the people who have to make restitution because it was their clergy and their members and their dereliction of duty...

“The main culprits of this have to be the people who ultimately pay,” he said.

Mr Ahern offered hope that those who aided the cover-up by sheltering paedophile priests would be punished.

Dublin city councillor and child abuse survivor Mannix Flynn joined the launch and pressed Mr Ahern for a full national inquiry on the cover-up by Church and secular authorities.

Mr Ahern, and Children’s Minister Barry Andrews, said the Government would keep the option of extending the Commission’s work beyond Dublin, and now Cloyne, under review.

But they did not accept Mr Flynn’s call for a full scale inquiry.

Mr Ahern said the commission’s work was just a sample and was not intended to be an exhaustive account of all abuse endured.

Mr Andrews said the Health Service Executive had received questionnaires from all dioceses in July and it is meeting bishops to clarify their responses. Decision on future inquiries will be made on the basis of these.