Garda Child Protection Failures and the Church

By David Quinn
Irish Catholic
February 3, 2012

http://www.irishcatholic.ie/site/content/garda-child-protection-failures-and-church

[with pdf]

A new report from the Garda Inspectorate on how well or how badly the Gardai are investigating child abuse allegations describes what amounts to a turf war between the HSE and the Gardai over who is responsible for what in terms of child protection.

The report says this turf war is compromising child safety.

In addition, The Irish Times reports that the Garda Inspectorate believes that Gardai are still too deferential towards the Church when investigating abuse allegations.

Two quick observations. When we discover that the Church is not properly implementing child protection protocols there is rightly all hell to pay and calls for resignations that are sometimes heeded.

This report, although yesterday's front page headline in The Irish Times, received almost no other media pickup and cause no political outcry. This is despite the fact that the State's own child protection policy. Children First, is not being properly implemented.

Secondly, the report does not say or imply that the Gardai are still being too deferential towards the Church. In fact, it says that there is "no evidence" of Garda deference at the present time.

So in this regard The Irish Times reports was completely inaccurate.