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Report finds two religious orders failed to properly implement child safeguards

The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI) says two...
Newstalk
Newstalk

13.09 4 May 2016


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Report finds two religious ord...

Report finds two religious orders failed to properly implement child safeguards

Newstalk
Newstalk

13.09 4 May 2016


Share this article


The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI) says two religious orders have failed to properly implement child safeguarding measures.

A final tranche of reports from five religious orders have been reviewed, as they are active in ministry and have some contact with children.

A further four that were reviewed under a smaller set of standards - as they have no contact with children - did have allegations made against them in the past.

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The remaining 21 orders have no contact with children and no allegations, and so were assessed against a limited number of standards.

"The vast majority of these reports are positive and reflect orders that have taken on the goals of child safeguarding and made it integral to what they do," said Teresa Devlin - CEO of the NBSCCCI.

"Unfortunately, in two cases, the Salvatorians and the Blessed Sacrament Fathers, we have seen little evidence that the standards have been properly implemented".

"The Salvatorians were particularly poor in relation to the monitoring of an accused priest. And in a number of cases poor record-keeping took place".

288 allegations made

The NBSCCCI says four congregations cannot be reported on or published, as they are included in a statutory review currently as part of the Historical Inquiry into Child Abuse in Institutional Care in Northern Ireland (HIA).

The reports of these congregations will be published after the HIA report is made public in 2017.

Overall there have been 288 allegations made against 90 priests, brothers or sisters with just 10 criminal convictions arising from that.

The allegations relate to the period between 1950 and 2002 with one incident in 2013.

"With so many elements of the church improving safeguarding for children so much, complacency might sneak in," Ms Devlin said.

"But the fact that we had an allegation as recently as 2013 shows that we cannot allow that to happen".

The NBSCCCI adds that a new set of standards has been agreed with the Church and are due to launched soon.


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