Report: Murphy follow-up investigation planned

A second report on clerical abuse in the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin is to be published.

The Sunday Business Post claims new evidence, believed to relate to alleged abuse by some of the 46 priests whose cases were reviewed for the Murphy Commission report into the widespread cover-up of child abuse, will form the basis of the follow-up investigation.

It comes amid reports that the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has requested that gardaí investigate whether a clerical paedophile ring was operating in the archdiocese.

Dr Martin is to reflect on the Murphy report when he presides over mass in Dublin this morning, with President Mary McAleese in attendance.

The Bishop of Down and Connor Noel Traenor has also issued a pastoral reflection to be read at mass in the dioceses this morning expressing his "horror and distress" at the findings of the report.

Meanwhile there has been criticism of the Taoiseach's response to the report's findings, in which he stopped short of calling for bishops named in the document to resign.

"The Taoiseach, I think, had he asked the bishops to resign, it would restore his rightful position as leader of this country," said Ellen O'Malley Dunlop of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre.

"All the other party leaders have done so, and the only person who hasn't done so is the leader of the country, which is sad."