Child protection - Dáil has failed in first duty of care

Following a meeting with Minister for Children Barry Andrews over the weekend, Cardinal Seán Brady and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin announced that the country’s Catholic bishops are committed to telling the HSE whether all allegations of clerical child sexual abuse have been reported to the civil authorities.

For legal reasons, the Catholic hierarchy stressed that it had previously been unable divulge some information to the HSE’s national audit on child protection practices. The bishops decided at an emergency meeting at Maynooth last Friday to try to find a way around legal difficulties that had prevented them from divulging whether all cases of clerical paedophile abuse had been reported to the civil authorities.

Minister Barry Andrews, Cardinal Brady and Archbishop Martin later agreed to separate the completion of the audit from the issue of “soft information,” such as rumour, hearsay or innuendo which caused legal difficulties.

In recent weeks, issues surrounding the failure to report the sexual abuse of children have highlighted the involvement of people not only in Church circles, but also in the public service. Mr Andrews stated during the week that he had not been informed until last week of the allegations in relation to the Roscommon case in which a mother of six children was jailed for seven years for child neglect and incest.

The system had broken down again, but will anyone ever be held accountable for the failure to protect those children, especially after their plight was reported to the authorities? Would those dreadful instances of child neglect ever have been highlighted if the case had not also involved incest?

We are unlikely to make progress until those responsible for such oversights are held accountable.

The hierarchy essentially committed all the bishops to implementing guidelines in relation to clerical paedophile abuse years ago. But some of those guidelines were ignored in relation to the recent revelations of clerical paedophile abuse in the Cloyne diocese.

Yesterday Mary O’Rourke spoke about the Government bringing forward measures to enshrine children’s rights in the Constitution. This was, in essence, an admission that the Dáil has failed in its primary duty.

At its first meeting more than 90 years ago, the Dáil adopted a Democratic Programme which proclaimed: “It shall be the first duty of the Government of the Republic to make provision for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the children, to ensure that no child shall suffer hunger or cold from lack of food, clothing or shelter.”

The neglect in the Roscommon case would suggest that the state has failed miserably. Surely it is not too much to expect that, before the Dáil celebrates its centenary, it will ensure, finally, that the rights of children are protected in a meaningful way.