IRELAND
One in Four
Lawyers representing US clerical child sex abuse victims have indicated they may initiate multi-million-dollar lawsuits against Irish dioceses that trained paedophile priests.
They say that if a test case against an Irish diocese, probably Cashel and Emly, is successful, other cases will follow.
Manly & Maguire, a California law firm which has handled hundreds of clerical abuse cases, has said it is currently putting a test case together under Californian contract law. Other law firms are expected to follow suit after recent disclosures that 18 Irish priests are facing abuse charges in California.
According to attorney Patrick Wall, Manly & Maguire will argue Irish seminaries were hired by US dioceses to train priests and were negligent in their duties. He said the students in Irish seminaries were already "quasi-employees" of US dioceses and that the Irish seminaries had a legal duty to inform the US dioceses about any potential paedophiles.