Let the gardaí deal with clerical child abuse

WITH reference to Marie Collins’s letter (‘Church’s new child safety guidelines challenged’, March 3), it really is hard to believe people are still in doubt as to the correct procedures to be followed in suspected cases of clerical child abuse.

Surely people must by now realise that approaching the church authorities is, at best, justice delayed and, all too often, justice denied.

Catholic bishops simply do not have the competence to undertake a preliminary criminal investigation, even if their impartiality could be relied upon — past experience strongly suggests it cannot.

There seem to be far too many committees, guidelines and codes of conduct in existence and many seem to be a substitute for genuine action.

The church claims to have seen the error of its previous ways and to be fully contrite — it seems to me that in many cases the only genuine remorse centres around the fact that they have been caught.

The only avenue of complaint should be through the gardaí.

They have the resources and the competence and hopefully would carry out a proper and fair investigation.

David Roberts

‘Gloundine’

Castlegrove

Mallow

Co Cork