Accused psychiatrist cleared priest to return to ministry

THE consultant psychiatrist who allegedly sexually abused numerous female patients treated disgraced child abuser priest Bill Carney and gave the green light to his return to ministry.

The second section of the Murphy report on clerical sex abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese said Dr Lane O’Kelly, who died two weeks before his own trial in July 2009, was tasked with treating the abuser.

Dr O’Kelly was the subject of a series of complaints by women he treated at Belmont Park Hospital in Co Waterford, which was operated by the Brothers of Charity Services until it closed in 1992.