BishopAccountability.org
	Bishop Rejects Speculation As Audit Report Due to Be Made Public By Noel Baker Irish Examiner July 20, 2011 http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/kfgbkfgbgbkf/rss2/ The National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCC) has completed its audit of the Raphoe Diocese and it is due to be published in the near future. However, there had been speculation over allegations of abuse that were not acted on in the diocese, something Bishop Philip Boyce rejected yesterday. In a letter to a national newspaper, Bishop Boyce said that such allegations were "unfounded" and said that he had felt "shock and deep disappointment with the findings of the Cloyne report". "As bishop of Raphoe, I have fully cooperated with the recent audit by the Health Safety Executive and the audit review by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church. "The diocese takes the duty of safeguarding children very seriously." Bishop Boyce said all allegations of abuse are reported to the statutory authorities and that numerous people had undergone training in child protection. He said a diocesan child protection committee had been established in 2006 and that all 33 parishes in the diocese have two or more child protection representatives who in turn train at local level all church personnel involved in dealing with children. In another development, the chairman of the Kerry Diocesan Safeguarding Children Committee also said it had co-operated fully with audits conducted in that Diocese. Canon Gearoid Walsh, in another letter published yesterday, said priests involved in alleged abuse had been reported and that "it is the policy of the diocese of Kerry to report all allegations to the civil authorities, An Garda Síochána and the Health Service Executive". He said the annual diocesan audit of safeguarding practices had just been completed and that there had been full co-operation with the HSE audits carried out. "The diocese of Kerry profoundly regrets that any child should have experienced sexual abuse, particularly by a priest of religious," Canon Walsh said. The NBSCC has completed reviews of six dioceses, including Raphoe, and pressure is growing for all of those reviews to be published. Contact:
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