Victims' group slam 'arrogance' of child-protection guidelines

The Catholic Church’s new guidelines on child protection show extraordinary arrogance in defying the state’s authority in looking after vulnerable youngsters, a sex abuse victims group said today.

Colm O’Gorman, director of One In Four, said the new policy published in the wake of the Ferns Report was a rehash of the 1996 framework on child abuse, and showed nothing had changed within the Church.

And he criticised the failure to ensure that all allegations of abuse would automatically be reported to civil authorities.

The Our Children, Our Church document lays out policies on how church officials are to work with children and the appropriate response to suspicions of abuse.

It was published following the details of horrific child abuse carried out over four decades by priests in Co Wexford which emerged in the Ferns Report, and subsequent revelations from other dioceses.

It commits the Catholic Church to a coherent approach to the issue across Ireland, and includes the creation of a national board and ‘collaborative units’ which will each have a professionally qualified director of child protection.

The board – which will be chaired by former Attorney General Mr Justice Anthony Hederman – will publish an annual audit on the implementation of the policy, and statistics on child abuse.

Dr Brady said the new guidelines had the purpose of ensuring children were safe within the context of the Church.

“We want to ensure that children, parents, clergy and the public at large can have the utmost confidence in the commitment of the Church to the protection of children and that the painful mistakes of the past will never happen again.

“We want children to feel that they have been treated at all times with the dignity, respect and care they deserve by the community of the Church.

“Indeed, a fundamental principle of this policy is that, in all decisions made and actions taken in response to allegation and suspicions of child abuse, the welfare of the child is paramount,” he said.

But Mr O’Gorman criticised the decision to leave it up to the director of child protection to evaluate whether there were reasonable concerns of abuse and if it should be reported to civil authorities.

“What these guidelines tell us is not a jot has changed, that the Church believes it can – within a church context – manage child protection, when it so woefully failed to do so in the past, and that it will be the arbitrator of whether or not a concern exists,” he said.

“The Catholic Church is usurping the authority of the state, it is subverting the ability of the state to protect children within a church context, when it decides that it will arbitrate whether or not a concern exists.”

Mr O’Gorman said the Church had rehashed the 1996 guidelines and produced a version which didn’t meet the standards demanded by the Ferns Report or the terms of reference of the upcoming Dublin diocese inquiry.

“We’ve moved backwards not forwards,” he said.

“At this stage in our history, does anybody seriously believe that it is appropriate to place the protection of children within the Church context in the gift of an organisation which has demonstrated a complete inability to deliver that protection and an unwillingness to implement its policies and procedures,” he said.

“I’m amazed, given the very strong indications from Government that they will act to ensure the recommendations of the Ferns Report – which go way above and beyond all of this, which require that even unreasonable suspicions should be reported to the civil authorities – that they have the extraordinary arrogance to publish guidelines that completely once again defy the state in terms of child protection,” Mr O’Gorman told RTÉ Radio.

The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC) welcomed the publication of the guidelines, but said policies which were not backed up with a statutory framework would not effectively protect children.

It called on the Government to support the Catholic Church by implementing the Children First guidelines which were launched in 1999.

The children’s charity also called for legislation on garda vetting of people who worked with youngsters and cross-border consistency in child protection.