Bishops have been urged to give a commitment to publish a national audit on the introduction of child protection policies in all Irish dioceses.
The One in Four group said a number of Catholic dioceses had taken a “robust” approach in dealing with allegations of child abuse by members of the clergy “by involving An Garda Síochana and the HSE upon receipt of an allegation”.
“However, we are also acutely aware that some dioceses are not following this approach”, the group’s Executive Director Maeve Lewis said.
There remains a lack of transparency and accountability in how each individual diocese and religious order are responding to the issue of clerical sexual abuse. - Maeve Lewis
“The difficulty lies in the fact that there remains a lack of transparency and accountability in how each individual diocese and religious order are responding to the issue of clerical sexual abuse."
The charity, which supports victims of sexual violence, was responding to weekend reports that the Catholic Church's National Child Protection Office felt frustration at a lack of co-operation from the Cloyne diocese in its investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by priests.
The Bishop of Cloyne, Dr John Magee, expressed surprise at the reports. In a statement, the Diocese of Cloyne said Bishop Magee and other representatives had met chief executive of the church's child protection office Ian Elliott on two occasions.
"These meetings were cordial and productive," said the statement, adding that Bishop Magee later wrote to Mr Elliott offering to meet him on either April 4th, 7th, 14th or 21st as well as promising to co-operate fully and provide him with access to all relevant files.
Mr Elliott wrote back on April 14th, indicating that he was unable to fix a date for a meeting until after April 17th, and that he would be in contact to discuss other possible dates.
The Diocese statement said his comments in the Sunday Tribuneyesterday were therefore "surprising". It added a meeting has now been scheduled for today.
In November 2005 the Child Protection Policy unveiled by the Catholic Church in Ireland, Our Children, Our Church, committed to establishing a National Board on Child Protection.The board was to undertake an annual audit and publish an annual report on the implementation of the policies and procedures.
“This audit has not to our knowledge been completed to date,” Ms Lewis added.
“We therefore remain in a place of speculation as to how each diocese and religious order is responding to allegations of clerical sexual abuse.
“It is imperative that this audit be published to ensure transparency and accountability of each diocese and religious order”.
