Catholic Church 'must do more to help abuse survivors'
The Catholic Church needs to do more to help survivors of child abuse, according to the watchdog for child protection.
There have been 164 new allegations of abuse made against the church in the past year, according to the annual report from the National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church.
That is down from 242 reports the previous year.
The new CEO of the board, Teresa Devlin, says some survivors say they are not being treated well by the church and it should do more.
"People are in their own homes or wherever they are and they're thinking 'nobody cares' - because nobody's communicating," she said.
"So better communication, better at offering support".
"People are offered, automatically now, counseling and support services - and I know from survivors that that's a really good thing for them".
"But there's other things that we need to learn to do better."
