Irish Catholic church ‘hid abuse for decades’
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.