Cloyne abuse report - How little has been learned

The Irish Bishops Conference in 1996 lay out the procedures for handling allegations and suspicions of clerical child sex abuse in a document entitled “Child Sexual Abuse: Framework for a Church Response.”

Twelve years later the Catholic Church’s own watchdog — the National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC) — was damning in its report of the manner in which the Diocese of Cloyne handled the complaints.

As a result, Circuit Court Judge Yvonne Murphy was appointed to examine the way in which the Church and state authorities — such as the health service and An Garda Síochána — handled the complaints made between January 1996 and February 2009.