Insurance deals expose ‘gross dishonesty’

REPRESENTATIVES of those abused by the clergy have accused the Church of gross dishonesty and deception after it emerged that bishops negotiated insurance deals to cover compensation payments years before it acknowledged the scale of the problem.

Colm O’Gorman, of victim support organisation One In Four, said he was furious at the callousness demonstrated by the Church: “In 1987 they had enough awareness to act to protect the Church and that unveils the absolutely barefaced lie they have often repeated over the last 15 years.

“It finally exposes the Church’s real priorities and the gross dishonesty of its protestations of the past 15 years that it had little awareness or understanding of clerical sexual abuse.”