Latest Channel 4 News:
Row over Malaysian state's coins
'Four shot at abandoned mine shaft'
Rain fails to stop Moscow wildfires
Cancer blow for identical twins
Need for Afghan progress 'signs'

Irish Catholic church ‘hid abuse for decades’

By Channel 4 News

Updated on 26 November 2009

A report into abuse allegations against Catholic priests in the Dublin archdiocese reveals how senior clerics covered up the scandal and how police failed to take action, even when they knew what was going on.

Irish victims of child abuse at the hands of their parish priests have long complained of a cover-up.

Now, after a three-year investigation, a damning report into the archdiocese of Dublin has backed their claims, finding successive archbishops in Dublin spent decades hiding abuse to protect the reputation of the church.

The investigation of a period dating from the 1960s to the 1990s found evidence of hundreds of crimes against children that were never reported to the police.


But even when the police were involved, they habitually regarded the church as above the law.

The current archbishop of Dublin said today "no words of apology could ever be sufficient".

Krishnan Guru-Murthy talked to Colm O'Gorman, the author of Beyond Belief, who has previously sued the Catholic church for the abuse he suffered at the hands of a priest.

Send this article by email

More on this story

Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of external websites.


Watch the Latest Channel 4 News

Watch Channel 4 News when you want

Latest UK news

More News blogs

View RSS feed

Sangin 'not a retreat'

image

Author Patrick Hennessey on the Helmand redeployment.

Who is horse-boy?

image

Hoof or spoof? Google Street View mystery figure speaks.

'Serious loss of discipline'

image

Saville inquiry condemns British soldiers for Bloody Sunday.

Afghan fatalities in full

British soldiers killed in Afghanistan

The full list of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001.

How to tweet

How and why to follow the Channel 4 News family on Twitter.

Most watched

image

Find out which reports and videos are getting people clicking online.




Channel 4 © 2010. Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of external websites.