Ireland Inquiry Exposed Horrors

News.com.au
November 14, 2012

www.news.com.au/national/ireland-inquiry-exposed-horrors/story-fndo4bst-1226516942019

IRELAND'S landmark inquiry into Catholic Church child sex abuse uncovered more than 100 cases of rape and assault involving at least 21 priests in only one small county diocese.

The 2005 Ferns Report found the church, police and government failed in their duties to protect children.

It said the church hierarchy considered rape and sexual assault a moral issue rather than a criminal matter.

Only two priests were convicted over the scandal in County Wexford. A third priest charged committed suicide in the late 1990s before his case went to court.

Almost half the accused priests had died by the completion of the report, one of four major child abuse inquiries in Ireland over the past decade including the Cloyne Report, the Murphy Report and the Ryan Report.

While the decade-long Ryan Report was set up in 1999 to focus on general child abuse like Australia's looming royal commission, the Ferns Report was considered significant as the first specific state investigation into the Catholic church's handling of abuse allegations against priests.

Announced in March 2003, and completed in October 2005, it found what was believed to be the highest proportion of sexually abusive clergy in any diocese anywhere in the world.