Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

The Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, is the line Minister with direct responsibility. The HSE has received details of complaints from all dioceses subject to the audit, the persons against whom the complaints have been made, the information on reporting. The HSE is in the process of cross-referencing this information with the Garda records. The Garda Síochána is fully committed to facilitating this process. It has set up a dedicated team to work on the audit and has the services of an independent consultant. It is also undertaking an audit of 140 religious orders. Like everybody else, I took on board the sentiments expressed by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. I agree we have to take his words very seriously when he referred to these dark forces. If it is the case there are people within the church authorities who are still railing against the type of new structures put in place by the church authorities, then this is an issue, primarily, for the church authorities to deal with.

The Dublin archdiocese report was a mere sampling of the entire Dublin archdiocese area and yet it took four years to complete. The Cloyne report is now added to that. There is a total of 21 other dioceses. The original idea of taking a sample of cases from Dublin was as an illustration of how the church and the State authorities dealt with these complaints historically. We have learned from Judge Murphy's excellent report and the commission report, that these cases were not well dealt with, in particular by the church. The State authorities, in all fairness, followed up very quickly when these cases were first brought to its attention in the mid-1990s but the church was slow and lethargic in confronting this issue. No decisions are being made with regard to the extension but when the final results of the Cloyne investigation are available, decisions may be made at that stage whether to extend it to the other 21 dioceses. It is best to wait. The Cloyne investigation includes all the cases whereas a sampling was undertaken in Dublin because of the size of the archdiocese.

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