Tag Archives: NBSCCC

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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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[A table showing the incidence of safeguarding allegations received within the Society of the Divine Word Missionary Irish British Province from January 1, 1975]

The National Board on Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church published its review of child protection at the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) Missionary Society,  Archdiocese of Dublin, the Dioceses of Cloyne, Killaloe, and Meath, and congregations the Presentation Brothers, the Patrician Brothers, Benedictine, Glenstal, and the Columban Missionaries.

In relation to the Society of the Divine Word, the NBSCCC looked at case files on seven men, however it said  that the information supplied by the missionary was grossly inadequate.

However, in relation to the files  it found: “The existence of child safeguarding case management files within SVD IBP [Irish British Province] can only be traced back to the beginning of 2013. While the administrator has done excellent work in creating the files that the reviewers examined, from her reading of the whole archive of Review of Safeguarding Practice in the Irish British Province of the Society of the Divine Word (Divine Word Missionaries) society members’ personnel files, she could only import documents that she found. A lot of documentation was either never generated, or was removed or destroyed by parties unknown, or was kept in some file or files the existence of which has not yet been discovered.”

It found one of the men who spent some time in an SVD seminary, and of whom concerns were raised but no abuse was found while an SVD seminarian, was later transferred to a diocesan seminary where was ordained and was subsequently found to have abused children as a priest.

The review also found a second men, against whom an allegation of historical child sexual abuse had been made, was dead for several years before the allegation was received.

In one case the complaint has been made by a third party and not the alleged victim therefore, the review maintained, while the allegation has been reported to the statutory authorities, no statutory or canonical investigation can be initiated.

The four other men are out of ministry as a result of concerns about child sexual abuse, with one having already served time in jail for abuse committed in Ireland.

The report found: “Two of these men made admissions of having abused children, although no allegations against them have been received; and in the case of the other two, sufficient evidence of concern exists to justify their being asked to step aside from ministry while appropriate investigations are being conducted. In all four cases the men involved are living in an SVD IBP community house, and in the case of three of them, supervision arrangements and restrictions are in place. Two of these men were required to move to SVD IBP community houses where they would have no access to young people or vulnerable adults.”

The report also states: “The reviewers were very concerned about the potential risks involving one SVD IBP member who has admitted to extensive abuse of children in mission countries over a 20- year period, but against whom there are no complaints or allegations. It needs to be noted that this man only became a member of SVD IBP when he returned to the province from overseas, and that the Irish Provincial had no authority over him while he served abroad. Unfortunately this man’s situation was very poorly managed by the international leadership of the society at Generalate level since concerns about his ministry were first raised. He was moved from one country where the local bishop did not want him, to another country, where it would have been much more appropriate to withdraw him from ministry until his personality and behavioural problems were dealt with. However, recent evidence indicates that he abused children until he was returned to Ireland; there have been no admissions or allegations relating to him having abused in Ireland. All admissions were reported to the civil authorities by the Irish designated person.”

It adds: “While there had been three specialist assessments of this priest, in 1985, 1997 and 2004, previous provincials had not kept assessment reports on file, if such reports were ever requested by them and the current provincial was not briefed about this man’s problems when he was taking over the leadership from his predecessor. Matters were further complicated by the fact that despite a lengthy list of admissions during the most recent specialist assessment, the author of the Assessment Report (which the current provincial had in 2013 to specifically seek from the UK assessment service from which it had been commissioned in 2004) concluded that the man should be considered as being ‘low risk of abusing children. The reviewers cannot understand how such a determination was made. It needs to be said that no complaints or allegations of child abuse have been made against this priest since he returned to IBP in 1997.”

It may be worth noting that, in its introduction, the NBSCCC states that:”The Society of the Divine Word Irish British Province was late to take up its responsibilities for child safeguarding, when it is considered that it was 1996 when Child Sexual Abuse: Framework for a Church Response, the Report of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Advisory Committee on Child Sexual Abuse by Priests and Religious was published. Perhaps it was an oversight that the members of the Irish Missionary Union were not involved in the development of that seminal guidance document.

Read the report in full here

101 priests in single diocese accused of abuse in 40 years (Irish Examiner)

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[The newly-appointed CEO of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland Teresa Devlin]

You may recall reports from March claiming that Ian Elliot – who carried out fieldwork in the diocese of Down and Connor in May 2013 and produced a draft report in July 2013 – may sue Bishop Noel Treanor over the December 2013 publication of the NBSCCCI review of safeguarding practice in the Diocese of Down and Connor, claiming the final report failed to include a serious clerical child abuse case.

At the time, Mr Elliot told the Irish Independent the diocese 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 National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland rejected the claim in a statement on its website.

Further to this, the newly-appointed CEO of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland Teresa Devlin spoke to Richard Dowling on RTÉ’s News At One yesterday, following the publication of the group’s annual report, which said 164 new allegations of abuse were reported to the NBSCCC and to State authorities, between April 1, 2013 and the end of March, 2014.

In the first half of the interview, Ms Devlin spoke about how the NBSCCC, over the last year, has completed 18 reviews of safeguarding practice. She said 26 dioceses, and 11 religious orders or missionary societies, have now been reviewed.

Ms Devlin also said the NBSCCC has stared a three-year training strategy which is focusing on developing skills within the clergy, including “developing more compassionate responses”.

Mr Dowling then raised the concerns previously voiced by her predecessor, Ian Elliot.

Richard Dowling: “The first couple of paragraphs in the report pays tribute to your predecessor Ian Elliot for, quote, the immense contribution he made to ensure children are safe. Yet, Mr Elliot is himself, we know, deeply unhappy with the particular report published on the Diocese of Down and Connor, this report published last July. He was involved with the board when the draft report was done. He wasn’t involved, he then left at that point. And then the final report was compiled and published. It’s known he’s deeply unhappy with the difference between one and the other.”

Teresa Devlin: “We are in the process of legal correspondence with Mr Elliott’s lawyers, so I don’t think it would be really..”

Dowling: “It’s not sub judice now, there’s no legal proceedings that have been initiated, I know you’ve exchanged letters but surely it puts a cloud over everything when a man of his ability and integrity says I have a particular problem with this report, I want my name disassociated from it.”

Devlin: “OK. Two things. First of all, on our website, we have made a clear statement about the process of that report, we didn’t put anybody’s name to that report, we never put people’s names to that report. So that’s not Mr Elliot’s report, that’s the board’s report. And we have given an explanation on our website as to the differences between the draft report that was written by him and the final report that was produced under my office.”

Dowling: “The diocese has the full report of, it also has a letter thanking Ian Elliot for his involvement. He would like that taken down. Surely, as a first step, that would be a reasonable request for him to make. Would you agree?”

Devlin: “And that’s a matter between the diocese and himself.”

Dowling: “Well it’s a matter for you, it’s your report?”

Devlin: “The letter, is the letter from the diocese..”

Dowling: “Well, the letter would have no significance, if it wasn’t for your report. The report is there and a link to it, with this letter, saying thank you Ian Elliot, surely that distorts what he says is the reality.”

Devlin: “Oh, absolutely, I accept that he was not the author of the report..”

Dowling: “So shouldn’t his name be taken away from it, in all circumstances, not just in how you publish the report but equally how the diocese publishes the report..”

Devlin: “Absolutely, tt was the national board that published that report, under my office, not under the offices of Mr Ian Elliot.”

Dowling: “It does put a question mark though, doesn’t it? Over not just this report but in the way business is being done, subsequent to his departure?”

Devlin: “Oh, well I would take a bit of offence at that because I’m now the CEO, I’ve been acting CEO for some time. I have been in child protection for 30 years, I’m a strong, confident woman. I can talk, I develop relationships with bishops in the way that they will listen to what I have got to say. I’m sufficiently independent and I have a governance arrangement around me…”

Dowling: “This is not to take away from your integrity at all, nor indeed the integrity of the others on the board. They’re very, very capable people and of the utmost integrity. But here we have the dichotomy , where you have a man of Ian Elliot’s ability and integrity saying this is not my report, I want nothing to do with this report. How do you explain the difference between his draft report and the final report.”

Devlin: “Well we’ve already done that. We’ve already explained that on our…”

Dowling: “Can you explain for our listeners?”

Devlin: “Absolutely. Within the draft, the first draft was produced before he left. It was an incomplete report because I then took over and I decided that more information was needed where the work was done on that report. There are two significant, substantive differences which were in Ian Elliot’s report which did not end up in the final report. One related to allegations of abuse against adults, which does not come within the terms of reference of our work ,and the second related to the relationship between the diocese and the office. The board made a decision that that didn’t have a place in a review of their safeguarding practice. The issue in relation to the adults, which is about assessment and management of risk, remained in the report. The reference specifically to adults did not.”

Dowling: “Ian Elliot doesn’t accept this.”

Devlin: “That’s a matter for him. I’m very confident about the evidence for that report. I stood over it and I still stand over it and I think it’s a factually-based, evidence-based, actual, factual report.”

Listen back in full here

Previously: On A Collision Course

“By Covert Means”