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	Misleading and Unhelpful, or Devious and Dishonest? Irish Independent February 1, 2009 http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/misleading-and-unhelpful-or-devious-and-dishonest-1622862.html We're still being left guessing as to the exact nature of the bishops' problem with the HSE audit, says Colum Kenny SO what is missing from this scenario? Last weekend, representatives of the Catholic hierarchy and Minister for Children Barry Andrews met privately and agreed that the bishops would not have to answer all of the questions about child protection that were put to them by the Health Service Executive (HSE) on October 23, 2006. Missing were the HSE, any organisation representing survivors of abuse and any of the other agencies involved in child protection with which the HSE intended to share its information. A statement issued jointly by the minister and hierarchy after the meeting reinforced an impression that the bishops were going to answer "all" of the questions put to them by the HSE in 2006. They are not. But that statement gave the bishops and the minister some cover for their continuing failure to implement the Ferns Report of 2005 in full. Last weekend's meeting brings to mind other meetings that took place in 2002 between then Minister for Education Michael Woods and Catholic Church authorities, which left the State bearing the brunt of compensation for child abuse at religious institutions. The Attorney General was controversially excluded from key meetings then. Minister Barry Andrews insisted last week that there was no need for the HSE to attend his meeting with the hierarchy. His spokesperson said: "This was a policy-related meeting where the minister wished to deal with policy matters with the Cardinal and the Archbishop of Dublin representing the views of the Catholic hierarchy. The HSE will be fully involved in putting Government policy into operation as the executive agency with statutory powers and affirmative duties in the State in relation to the adequacy of child protection." This is the same minister who told RTE on December 23 last year that the reason he did not read a damning report on the Diocese of Cloyne, which he received last July, before passing it to the HSE was that the HSE is the State authority which "has the function of ensuring that child protection practice in the State is very good". RTE described the outcome of last weekend's meeting as "a breakthrough", but it was actually a compromise -- one which distracts from the Government's continuing failure to reform the law as recommended in the Ferns Report. On Thursday, the minister's spokesperson said: "The legislation is extremely complex and potentially has constitutional implications. Therefore, the legislation will not be enacted this session but there is an expressed intention to publish the Bill in the first half of this year." The Government's position has not advanced since May 2007, when HSE boss Professor Brendan Drumm brought the hierarchy's refusal to complete Section 5 of the HSE audit to the attention of the then Minister for Children, Brian Lenihan. The legal changes recommended in the Ferns Report in 2005 would allow both the hierarchy and State agencies to share certain so-called "soft information" about child abuse allegations without fear of being sued for libel. There is a genuine legal problem in this regard, although what constitutes "soft information" that could prejudicially affect individuals may be debated. However, bishops used that genuine problem to avoid answering any of the questions within Section 5 of the HSE audit of child protection practices. Some of the information requested was just statistical. The bishops' decision now to give some of the information raises the question of why they did not give it when first asked. Have the bishops simply compromised to take the heat out of calls for the resignation of the Bishop of Cloyne? The outcome of last week's meeting raises ethical ques- tions about the hierarchy's earlier use of unpublished legal advice to suggest that some information which the bishops will now give could not have been given sooner. Is the hierarchy refusing to publish its legal advice on the HSE abuse audit because that advice perhaps did not actually support their failure to answer even statistical questions? If so, then their allusions to that legal opinion when avoiding Section 5 of the HSE audit in its entirety in 2007, and when answering recent media queries about their refusal to do so, seems misleading or unhelpful and even devious or dishonest. The statement issued by Minister Andrews after last weekend's meeting further muddied the water. He first "welcomed the bishops' renewed commitment to providing all of the information in Section 5 of the HSE audit". But he went on to make it clear that the bishops in fact would not answer "all" of the original HSE questions. Andrews acknowledged that Section 5 of the audit would be reduced in size or qualified in some unspecified way. He said: "In the light of agreement by all present to separate the completion of Section 5 of the HSE audit from issues of soft information which all accepted present legal difficulties, it was agreed that a fresh mechanism would be found to enable bishops to provide the information that had been requested in the HSE audit, Section 5." Unfortunately, "all present" did not include the HSE or organisations representing abuse survivors. It is not clear exactly what data the bishops will provide. A spokesman for the bishops confirmed last week that they will not give some of the information originally requested -- at least until the law is changed in a way that they find acceptable. A spokesman for Mr Andrews said on Thursday: "Some minor changes in the exact wording of the questions contained in Section 5 may be made to ensure complete clarity and precision in relation to terminology used, and thus improve the information to be supplied. The new mechanism to be agreed in detail with the HSE and the bishops' representatives for the return of updated audit information to the HSE is intended only to improve on the information requested so as to better enable the HSE to finalise the renewed audit." Survivors of abuse and other interested groups have been left guessing at the exact nature of the bishops' problem with the HSE audit. Moreover, statements issued since last weekend's private Church-State meeting have failed to clarify the precise nature of the deal done by Minister Andrews in the absence of the State's child protection authority.
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