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	Why Was Pervert Priest Allowed to Study at City School for Two Years Alongside Our Children? By Cormac Byrne The Herald December 18, 2010 http://www.herald.ie/national-news/why-was-pervert-priest-allowed-to-study-at-city-school-for-two-years-alongside-our-children-2465952.html PAEDOPHILE ex-priest Tony Walsh was allowed to do a two- year course at a Dublin secondary school -- to the horror of parents. The sex fiend attended Colaiste Ide College for Further Education in Finglas, at a campus used by teenagers. An irate parent contacted the Herald to say that Walsh had attended the college for two years. NOTORIOUS The former priest (57) was jailed for 16 years last week for abusing three boys, having previously been convicted of abusing six others in the 80s. The Murphy Report chapter on Walsh, published yesterday, declared that the Catholic Church failed hundreds of Dublin children by allowing Walsh to continue his behaviour for nearly two decades. It described Walsh as "probably the most notorious child abuser to have come to the attention of the commission"; a man who was likely to have assaulted hundreds of children. The previously unpublished chapter said: The Vatican wanted Walsh to serve 10 years in a monastery rather than force him out of the Catholic Church. nWithin two days of his appointment in Ballyfermot in 1978, the parents of a young boy complained that he had abused their son -- but the matter was dropped. A similar complaint a year later was also dropped. The commission found that by March 1985, at least seven priests in the Dublin archdiocese were aware of concerns about Walsh's behaviour. Walsh "denied nothing" when confronted by Monsignor Alex Stenson, then chancellor of the archdiocese, but he was merely moved to Westland Row. Pope John Paul II dismissed Walsh in 1996 only after a direct appeal for action by Cardinal Desmond Connell. Known as 'Father Filth', Walsh was also an Elvis impersonator in Fr Michael Cleary's well-known All Priests Show. A concerned member of the public, who wished to remain nameless, contacted the Herald following Walsh's sentencing last week. "This sick individual was a student at Colaiste Ide in Finglas, he finished second year last year after completing a course in PC maintenance," he told the Herald. "He was enrolled under his own name but there were no checks done and no one knew he was right under our noses. "Parents and students are not happy about this. "There are secondary school students going there at the same time as Mr Walsh, 14 and 15-year-old boys and girls. "I don't know how this monster could be let on the loose in a school environment. It makes me sick when I think he was going to the school every day and looking at children." Walsh attended the college, which also runs an extensive adult education programme, and completed a PC maintenance course last year. Principal Malachy Buckeridge told the Herald: "Nobody has raised any concerns with me at all. "I'm being absolutely blunt about this, I will make no comment ever about any student here at any point. "All I can say to you is that every safeguard which was needed to be put in place was. "We would never make any comment on a student one way or another. It's a matter within the school and the senior Dublin VEC." FAILeD Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin apologised to Tony Walsh's victims who were failed by the Church. "The Archdiocese of Dublin failed these children," he said. "It was too slow in recognising that Tony Walsh was a predatory paedophile." Walsh, of Bunratty Road, Coolock, was previously put on the sex offenders register and will undergo two years of probation supervision on release. Contact: hnews@herald.ie
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