VICTIMS of paedophile priests are to hold a protest in Dublin this weekend – two weeks before a report on the Raphoe Diocese is published.
ACCAI (Abused Catholic Children Association of Ireland) will be holding a protest at the Pro Cathedral in Dublin aimed at the upcoming Raphoe dioceses report into child abuse.
The report from the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, into abuse in Raphoe, is to be published following an audit of the diocese by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic church.
The final draft has to be approved by Bishop Philip Boyce before it is released. It will now only deal with what is found in Diocese records.
The group, that protests weekly at the Pro Cathedral, is organising this weekend’s protest with Raphoe as their subject due to the fact that a lot of Donegal GAA supporters will be in the city for the All Ireland Semi Final game with Dublin and it will enable them to get involved.
One of the organisers, John Deegan from County Donegal said: “We are asking that as many people as possible come along and offer their support. The protest gets underway at 10am.”
The audit of the diocese was led by Ian Elliott chief executive of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church. The board was founded in 2006 and has now compiled audits on six of Ireland’s 26 dioceses.
The board was tasked with uncovering the full extent of all complaints or allegations, knowledge, suspicions or concerns of child sexual abuse, made to the Raphoe diocese by individuals or by the civil authorities in the period 1 January 1975 to the present day, against Catholic clergy.
Its objective will be ‘to confirm how known allegations have been responded to and what the current arrangements for safeguarding children are’ in the Raphoe diocese.
We understand the report will not feature priests involved in abuse before 1975.
However we also understand that there will be pressure from victims for a full investigation into the Raphoe Diocese following the release of the audit.
Sources say ten priests were accused of various offences over four decades – with up to ten others suspected of offences but which did not go to court.
