IRELAND
Irish Voice
By Mairead Carey
A second major inquiry into clerical sexual abuse was launched by the Irish government on Tuesday.
Circuit Court judge Yvonne Murphy will chair a Commission of Investigation into the abuse of children by Dublin priests and religious.
The inquiry falls short of what was conducted in the Ferns diocese. Every case will not be investigated. Instead the commission will examine a sample of abuse allegations between 1975 and 2004 and the church’s handling of those cases.
The cases will be selected on the grounds that “strong and clear suspicion” existed at the time that Dublin clergy had been involved in child sex abuse.
The commission will then investigate “the nature of the response to those sample complaints or allegations on the part of the authorities to which those sample complaints or allegations were reported.”