IRELAND
The Times (UK)
Seán McCárthaigh
April 6 2017
The Times
Three religious orders whose members were linked to more than 500 allegations of child abuse have been criticised by a church oversight body for showing no discernible change in attitude to child protection until very recently.
The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI) said in a review published yesterday that the De La Salle Brothers, the Norbertines and the Sisters of Nazareth had demonstrated weak and occasionally poor practice in the implementation of child protection standards introduced in 2009. “Their performance in the recent past does not demonstrate any real change from their historical behaviour in terms of ensuring good safeguarding practice or putting in place effective pastoral responses to complainants who have made allegations of abuse,” the board said.
It said that the records used by the three congregations were not well maintained which had made the task of reviewing their compliance with child protection standards more difficult.
Publication of the review had been postponed by two years due to the historical institutional abuse inquiry in Northern Ireland which completed its work in January. Among the issues investigated by the inquiry was the case of Brendan Smyth, a Norbertine priest, who was one of the most notorious paedophile priests in recent decades until his arrest in 1994.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.