Cardinal Brady calls for an independent statutory body in the south

Will Crawley has the full statement from Cardinal Brady outlining why he is staying on in his post and what he proposes to do about child sex abuse within the church. In effect, in Northern Ireland, he is accepting that the state will have the final say:

I have asked the Child Safeguarding staff in the Diocese of Armagh to make all necessary preparations for our full participation as a Diocese in the work of the new Independent Safeguarding Authority, which comes into place in Northern Ireland later this year. In the future, it will be this statutory authority and not the Church (or any other organisation which works with children in Northern Ireland) that will decide who is permitted to work with children.

As part of our registration with this new Independent Safeguarding Authority, Bishops in Northern Ireland will give a commitment to sharing ‘soft information’ held or known about any person working in a Church context, as well as all allegations of abuse, with the new Authority. I regret that this important statutory safeguard will only be available in that part of the Diocese of Armagh which is in Northern Ireland. I would welcome the establishment of a similar system for sharing of information on a North-South basis.

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