Taking On The Church

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Former CEO of the National Board of Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCC) Ian Elliott

You’ll recall how, in March 2014, the former CEO of the church’s watchdog on child protection, National Board of Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, Ian Elliott told the Irish Independent that the Diocese of Down and Connor had blocked the release of information it had about  former priest Jim Donaghy, who was jailed for 10 years in 2012 for abusing two altar boys and a trainee priest.

The NBSCCC rejected the claim at the time.

Further to this, RTÉ Radio One’s This Week yesterday reported that Mr Elliott, whose role at the NBSCCC ended in June 2013, is taking a personal injuries case against the NBSCCC.

It is not known if the personal injuries case is related to the allegations pertaining to the Diocese of Down and Connor audit.

RTÉ journalist John Burke reported:

“My understanding is that the particular type of case which has been initiated by Mr Elliott in this case relates to a claim for stress in the workplace caused, allegedly, by a failure of the NBSCCC in this case to adequately support or protect his work while at the board.”

“In terms of the status of the application which Mr Elliott has taken against the board, and it’s important to explain first that the Personal Injuries Assessment Board operates a kind of clearing house for most types of injuries cases. You can’t take a personal injuries case in the courts without effectively going through this process first. So, effectively, the injuries board examines a case to see whether they can handle in it by consent between the parties or by some related means. And if not, they’ll formally release it which means they effectively decide that it can now proceed to a full civil litigation in the courts, if the applicant chooses.”

“Now, my understanding is that, earlier this month, the injuries board decided to release the case forward for litigation. And it’s also important to say that, by releasing the case, they don’t endorse or pass any judgement on the merit of a case. Essentially, what the injuries board has said is that the case is now released to proceed to the next stage which will be a court action.”

“The NBSCCC published a final version of that report [the audit into the Catholic diocese of Down and Connor] in December 2013 and it was reported some months later that Mr Elliott believed that that final report did not, in his view, reflect the original fieldwork that he had done during that process. The safeguarding board [NBSCCC] rejected the substance of those reports and said that they stood over the final published audit report, as an accurate reflection of the work of the board in preparing this audit into Down and Connor…We don’t know about the precise detail of Mr Elliott’s personal injuries case agains the board, other than our understanding that it relates to a claim for stress and psychological damages. He has not yet filed a plenary summons in a court which might be the most next likely outcome so it’s not until the subsequent stages of this that we would have more detail in terms of the specifics of Mr Elliott’s claim or whether it’s connected to that earlier dispute.”

“Mr Elliott met with the then Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald in February 2014, after he wrote to her, seeking a meeting. She then engaged in a series of written correspondence with the NBSCCC over the issue, copies of some of which we’ve obtained under a Freedom of Information request. Frances Fitzgerald wrote to the national board on the third of March last year, and a number of letters passed back and forth with the national board in which they categorically denied all of Mr Elliott’s allegations.”

“The issue has more recently been taken up by the current minister James Reilly, who met with the national board specifically on this issue in October last year. Now a spokesman for the minister described the disputed account of the audit report into Down and Connor as an internal matter between the national board and it’s former CEO. However he did say that the minister was reassured over the governance structures at the national board. And he also said that if such a dispute arose, again in the future, then a new procedure will apply, under which a High Court judge will be assigned to consider the differences in terms of the outcome of any report.”

There you go now.

Listen back in full here

Previously: On A Collision Course

‘By Covert Means’

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5 thoughts on “Taking On The Church

  1. rotide

    Can’t decide whats worse, the horrifically unwiedly NBSCCC acronym or the horrific fact that such a board is needed.

  2. Wayne.F

    Considering the church still owe hundreds of millions, in compensation to victims of it’s sexual abuse, good luck to him getting paid

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