IRELAND
Irish Times
Pamela Duncan, Patsy McGarry
More than 300 allegations of abuse were made against 141 priests or brothers relating to the period between 1960 and 2003, resulting in eight convictions, newly released audits reveal.
The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church published 43 reports on Wednesday including audits of eight male religious orders.
The audits revealed discrepancies in the number of allegations of sexual, physical and emotional abuse made to two orders and those reported to gardaí.
The report states that of 79 allegations made against 36 members of The Society of Jesus (Jesuits). Of the allegations made just 57 were reported to gardaí. The last incident occurred in 2003.
The reviewers found that this latter case, in which a Jesuit touched a child’s breast, was “most certainly a situation of child abuse”. However, when the incident was reported to the civil authorities the response was that incident did not meet the threshold for reporting. The member was removed from ministry.
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