Oireachtas failure halts priest’s trial for buggery

The Supreme Court has described as “inexplicable” the failure by the Oireachtas to allow for the prosecutions of buggery offences committed pre-1993, when it was decriminalising buggery between two consenting adults.

Yesterday, a Supreme Court majority decision halted the trial of a priest for alleged buggery of a teenage boy in 1970 due to that failure.

The Department of Justice said it had just received the judgment and is studying it.