Labour calls for Garda probe into Brady's handling of Smyth affair
The Labour Party tonight called for gardai to investigate Cardinal Sean Brady’s secret talks with child victims of one of Ireland’s most notorious paedophile priests.
Roisin Shortall, spokeswoman on social and family affairs, said detectives should be tasked to probe Fr Brendan Smyth’s role in a 1975 canon law inquiry into the abuse.
The Cardinal interviewed two children attacked by Smyth who were asked to take an oath of secrecy.
“The Cardinal is hopelessly compromised by what has emerged over the weekend,” the Labour TD said.
“It is bad enough that children should have been abused by a priest but it is almost beyond belief that these children should also have been required to take an oath that they would not disclose the abuse to anyone.”
Ms Shortall said if the early allegations against Smyth had been proven in court in the 1970s other innocent children would have been spared similar abuse.
A former Professor of Canon Law Monsignor Maurice Dooley said the Cardinal was under no obligation to report the allegations to gardai.
“He seemed to be claiming that clerics were not subject to the civil law. In a democratic Republic all citizens, regardless of their status, must be subject to the law of the state,” the TD said.
“I believe that there should be a Garda investigation to determine whether or not the failure to report Fr Smyth’s crimes to the civil authorities was, itself, a criminal offence.”
Ms Shortall said she has been advised the use of an oath may be considered illegal under section 17 of the Offences Against the State Act if it leads to a crime being concealed.
Anyone guilty of the offence could face two years in jail.
