By Diarmaid Fleming
BBC News
February 11, 2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7239515.stm
A court action over access to documentation linked to clerical sex abuse in Dublin has been dropped.
Cardinal Desmond Connell withdrew a legal action he had begun to stop documentation being handed over by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.
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| The commission was handed 60,000 documents |
It was to be passed to a child abuse investigation.
A commission of inquiry set up by the Irish government is investigating allegations of child abuse by priests and clerics.
The commission was handed more than 60,000 documents by the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, to help with its inquiries.
But his predecessor, Cardinal Connell took legal action to stop the commission examining more than 5,000 documents he said were either privileged communications between the church and its lawyers, or those involving people who had been promised confidentiality.
Accident
However, on Monday, a lawyer told the High Court in Dublin the cardinal, who is recovering in hospital in Rome after an accident, was dropping the action. He has not commented.
The Catholic hierarchy will welcome the ending of a deeply embarrassing dispute, in which senior figures in Rome are likely to have been involved in defusing.
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