Tánaiste and Minister for Health Mary Harney has had talks with her Northern counterpart about the Government's audit on child protection measures in Catholic dioceses which cross the Border.
The meeting between Ms Harney and Minister Shaun Woodward took place in Belfast last Tuesday. It has also emerged that a meeting on the issue between Department of Health officials and the Department of Health and Social Services and Public Safety in Northern Ireland took place on November 8th last.
Meanwhile, a meeting at Government Buildings in Dublin yesterday between the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and representatives of the One in Four group was described later as "very, very amicable, constructive, and very helpful" by Colm O'Gorman, the One in Four director.
Four of the 26 Catholic dioceses on the island are cross-Border, while just two are wholly in Northern Ireland. Armagh, of which the Catholic primate Dr Séan Brady is archbishop, and Clogher, Derry, and Kilmore dioceses are cross-Border; Dromore and Down & Connor are wholly in Northern Ireland.
Speaking to The Irish Times, Bishop Séamus Hegarty of Derry appealed to authorities North and South to help with difficulties faced by the church in cross-Border dioceses over co-operation with the Government's child protection audit.
He said bishops such as himself "had a real difficulty" when it came to the audit, as part of his diocese was in Donegal while most of it was in the North. He was very much "open to audit", but felt that the respective social services and police forces in both jurisdictions on the island should work together on the audit.
Speaking after the meeting with the Taoiseach yesterday, Colm O'Gorman said Mr Ahern had spoken of the sense of "disappointment and betrayal" he had felt following publication of the Ferns report. It was a "very considered" response, Mr O'Gorman said. He said it was important also to recognise that much had been achieved in dealing with clerical child sex abuse and that there was "no doubt the Government has moved a long way."The Taoiseach showed "public leadership" on the issue as far back as 1999, when he apologised to victims of abuse in residential institutions, Mr O'Gorman said.
