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	Court to Decide on Murphy Report Chapter Irish Times December 7, 2010 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/1207/1224284926521.html THE HIGH Court will this morning consider publishing chapter 19 of the Murphy report following the jailing yesterday of former priest Tony Walsh for 16 years, four suspended, for the sexual abuse of three boys. On October 15th, 2009, Mr Justice Paul Gilligan of the High Court ruled chapter 19, which deals with abuse by Tony Walsh, and 21 other references to him, should not be published pending the outcome of three court cases then pending. The Murphy report investigated how clerical child sex abuse allegations involving 46 priests in Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese were handled by church and State authorities between 1975 and 2004. Chapters 19 and 20 of the report were withheld when it was published on November 26th, 2009, pending the outcome of proceedings involving Walsh and another man. Proceedings in the other case are ongoing. Yesterday, in the Circuit Criminal Court, Walsh was sentenced to 16 years on 17 counts of sexual abuse, including five counts of buggery on one boy. Walsh was put on the sex offenders register for life and will undergo two years’ probation supervision on his release. In 1996, Walsh was convicted on 19 counts of abusing six victims and sentenced to 10 years, which was reduced to six years on appeal. He was released in 2001. In a statement last night, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said the archdiocese “failed” the children abused by Walsh “and was too slow in recognising that . . . was a predatory paedophile”. Even when the extent of his paedophile activity was identified “this dangerous man was allowed to continue in ministry for many years with the consequent damage visited on children”. “I can only unreservedly apologise to the victims of this man for what they endured and for the way in which the diocese failed them,” Archbishop Martin said. He hoped the “finality of the legal process will help bring them some sense of justice, of healing, of closure and hope for the future.” Welcoming the verdict last night “David”, now 38, who was subjected to the most serious abuses by Walsh, said he felt the sentence was “just and fair” but should have been consecutive rather than concurrent. He told The Irish Times that, following his abuse by Walsh, he was a drug addict from the age of 12 to 21. He began with his mother’s Valium and Prozac, graduating to crack cocaine and heroin. He went to Coolmine and has been clean since. He has attempted suicide “five times”. Once he jumped off a bridge and missed a train. He has slashed his veins. He has taken drug overdoses. He has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital “seven or eight times”. He admitted himself when the trial ended last month, and last night. He has three children from two relationships. “Every relationship I have finishes because of a lack of trust . . . I can’t trust love.” He had “a huge problem determining my sexuality. I thought that maybe I was gay.” He wondered about this until a few years ago when, through counselling, he was clear he was not gay. He believes he has attended court 37 times as Walsh exhausted the judicial review process in an attempt to have the trial stopped. He expressed particular gratitude to recently retired Det Garda Brendan Walsh and Det Supt Gabriel O’Gara for their “steadfast and consistent support” since he first went to the Garda in 1993. He was “extremely sorry” for Walsh’s parents and siblings and “what they too have been subjected to” and felt “no malice towards the church”. He met then archbishop of Dublin Desmond Connell in 1999 at a curate’s house in Ballyfermot. Archbishop Connell “cried” and promised David whatever support the archdiocese could offer. “To date they have stood up to that promise,” he said. He is also grateful to Angela Copely of the Ballyfermot ResourceCourt Centre, the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, and Dr Ivor Browne.
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