The sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cloyne was investigated by the Commission of Investigation, Dublin Archdiocese, Catholic Diocese of Cloyne, examining how allegations of sexual abuse of children in the diocese were dealt with by the church and state. The investigation, which resulted in the publication of the Cloyne Report in July 2011, was led by Judge Yvonne Murphy. The inquiry was ordered to look at child protection practices in the diocese and how it dealt with complaints against 19 priests made from 1996.
Misrepresentation by Bishop Magee
In February 2008, the Irish Government referred two allegations of child sex abuse to the National Board for Safeguarding Children, an independent supervisory body established by the Irish bishops, led by Mr Ian Elliott. When the chief executive of that body made contact with the diocese on the matter, he was met with lack of co-operation. Meetings held with Bishop John Magee and representatives of the diocese in March failed to elicit his full co-operation with the National Board for Child Protection's investigation. As per BBC News, "The report found that Bishop John Magee falsely told the government and the health service that his diocese was reporting all abuse allegations to authorities. It also found that the bishop deliberately misled another inquiry and his own advisors by creating two different accounts of a meeting with a priest suspecting of abusing a child, one for the Vatican and the other for diocesan files".
Media disclosures
In April 2008, Justine McCarthy, a journalist with the Sunday Tribune, broke the story of the impending scandal in the diocese of Cloyne. There followed a number of hastily arranged meetings between Magee, Monsignor Denis O'Callaghan, (the Vicar General of Cloyne), and Dean Eamon Gould with representatives of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church (or Safeguarding for short). These resulted in O'Callaghan handing over documentation concerning the two cases referred by the Irish Government to Safeguarding.
On 28 June 2008, Ian Elliott, the chief executive officer of Safeguarding, completed a damning report on the handling of both cases by Magee, by his delegate for Child Protection, O'Callaghan, and by his inter-diocesan case management committee. The Elliot Report was examined by that case management committee on 9 July 2008, and it adopted a position threatening Elliot and Safeguarding with legal action were they to publish the Report. In the meantime, Elliott passed the report to the Irish Government and to the minister for Children, Barry Andrews who did not read the report but passed it to the Health Service Executive to compile another report on it.
Political recommendations
In December 2008, Deputy Sean Sherlock of the Labour Party raised the matter in the press and demanded a Dáil discussion of the handling of Child Sex Abuse in Cloyne. Further press coverage led to the publication of the Elliott Report by Bishop Magee on 19 December 2008. The contents of the Report were shocking and concluded that Bishop Magee's actions, and those of his agent's in this area, were inadequate and in some respects were dangerous.
There followed a chorus of demands for Bishop Magee's resignation. The demands were renewed in January 2009 with the publication of the HSE Report commissioned by the Minister for Children which uncovered a number of other cases which had not been reported to the authorities or dealt with according to self-regulatory procedures. The Minister rejected a recommendation of the Health Executive Service report that the Cloyne case not be referred to the Dublin Tribunal of Investigation into Child Abuse and, following a Cabinet meeting held on 7 January, he referred Cloyne to the Dublin Tribunal which published a report in November 2009.
Public consequences
It now remains to be seen whether a member of the public will make complaint to the Garda Síochána (Irish police force) against Bishop Magee and/or Monsignor Denis O'Callaghan under the terms of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 which provides for a new offence of reckless endangerment of children. This came into effect on 1 August 2006.
This offence may be committed by a person who has authority or control over a child or an abuser and who intentionally or recklessly endangers a child by: