New child protection delegate for Cloyne diocese

A FORMER social worker with the HSE West has been announced as the new child protection delegate in the diocese of Cloyne.

Bill Meagher, the first lay person to assume this post in the diocese, will begin work today.

Father John McCarthy was acting child protection delegate in Cloyne since Fr Bill Bermingham stepped aside last summer after clerical abuse victims questioned his decision to show victims’ statements to accused priests. Monsignor Denis O’Callaghan was child protection delegate during the period when the National Board for Safeguarding Children sought to examine the mishandling of clerical abuse claims by the Co Cork diocese.