The Minister for Justice has said that complaints that the child protection Bill would break the seal of Confession were a “diversion” from the Catholic Church’s own failure to report clerical child abuse to the Garda.
Alan Shatter said he did not understand the “excitement” around the question of whether priests who learned of abuse from penitents would be obliged under the new legislation to report it to the Garda.
“I’m . . . of the view that this is a diversion from the real issue,” he told reporters in Luxembourg. This was that the church covered up abuse by clerics and moved abusers from parish to parish and that more children were abused in that way. The church knew about this but did not report it.
Mr Shatter said the issues that arose in relation to the new law were no different to those raised when legislation in 1998 obliged all people to provide information to the Garda on crimes such as murder and manslaughter.
Similar obligations were imposed on people in a 2011 law to tackle white collar crime.
Although some legal sources dispute it, Mr Shatter has said the new law will not protect priests from prosecution for failing to pass on information received during Confession.
