Ahern says national audit into abuse is needed

A nationwide audit into clerical sex abuse is needed, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said today.

Earlier this year, the Department of Justice reached agreement with victims' groups on an inquiry into alleged abuse in the Dublin archdiocese, an inquiry which should be expanded, Mr Ahern told the Dáil today.

"The whole issue is to make sure it never happens again, or as best we can in our society, that these things do not happen again," Mr Ahern told the House in reference to the Ferns report published yesterday.

"When we are looking at the Dublin issue we have to look at the nature and extent of the type of inquiry.

"There have been some suggestions by my colleagues already about how this could be done but until we work out a means of doing it I don't want to be just saying something off the top of my head.

"We will deal with it and I think the audit has to be national.

"Normally when somebody is in breach of something, and certainly something as serious as this, as happened properly by Bishop Walsh in Ferns they were removed and out of the equation.

"We have to make sure that wasn't the situation that pertained anywhere else."

The new Dublin inquiry, which would come under the Government's new powers to establish commissions of investigations into matters of public interest, would examine how the diocese handled cases of alleged child abuse against priests.

According to informed sources it would look, for example, into whether the Archdiocese moved priests around against whom allegations had been made.