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	New Reforms Proposed to Fight Child Sex Abuse By John Burke Sunday Business Post April 17, 2011 http://www.sbpost.ie/news/ireland/new-reforms-proposed-to-fight-child-sex-abuse-55790.html The head of the Garda Inspectorate has recommended a series of wide-ranging reforms which would change how the force investigates child sex abuse cases. The Sunday Business Post understands that Kathleen O'Toole has made 29 proposals to the government, which would involve significant changes to how gardaí investigate allegations of child sex abuse. It would also affect their information sharing practices with other security and child care agencies. The proposals were submitted to the previous government and remained unpublished for almost a year. But they are now being considered by the new Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, as part of a suite of measures to deal with the fall-out from the impending report into the handling of child abuse allegations in the Cork Catholic diocese of Cloyne, which is expected to be published in the coming week. It is understood that among the proposals is the creation of amore effective joint investigative structure between the Health Service Executive (HSE) and gardaí, where O'Toole has identified significant shortcomings in the past investigation of child abuse. A spokesman for the Garda Inspectorate confirmed that the report had been submitted following a review that was ordered by former minister Dermot Ahern. The inquiry into the handling of allegations of clerical child sex abuse in the Cork diocese of Cloyne was cleared for publication by the High Court two weeks ago. A previous report, written by Ian Elliott, the head of the Catholic Church's National Body for Safeguarding Children (NBSC), revealed significant inconsistencies in the sharing of information between the HSE and the Garda Síochána in relation to at least one allegation of clerical child sex abuse. Elliott's report revealed that one alleged victim of clerical abuse had personally complained to gardaí about the alleged abuse, but that this information was never passed on to the HSE. The victim had also claimed to have informed the Catholic diocese. Bishop John Magee, who was the serving bishop at the time of the complaint in 2005, has since retired. Magee admitted that he did not pass the information onto the HSE when he first became aware of the complaint, but he said that he informed a senior garda. The inquiry into abuse in Cloyne is expected to conclude that the diocese mishandled a litany of complaints into clerical child abuse despite the existence of guidelines after the 1996 Ferns report into abuse complaints in the Wexford diocese.
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