RTE NEWS - 13th July 2013
Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan has said no prosecution
is to be taken against current or former gardaí who connived with the Catholic
Church to protect paedophile former priest Patrick McCabe.
The Commissioner was responding to the Murphy Commission's
finding that a previous commissioner had taken a personal interest in pursuing
a blackmail complaint against McCabe's first known victim and that the man's
phone was tapped.
In a statement tonight, the commissioner told RTÉ News that
following a garda investigation into the force's handling of the McCabe case,
the DPP had decided that no prosecution was to be taken against current or
former gardaí.
He said it is a matter of regret to him personally that
people did not receive the appropriate attention and action from gardaí to
which they were entitled.
In 1977, the then Archbishop of Dublin, Dermot Ryan, was
told that a 14-year-old boy had been sexually abused by McCabe at his boarding
school. It was also alleged that when the boy complained to his
headmaster, a member of a religious order, he also abused the boy.
A church investigator told Archbishop Ryan the complaint was
well-founded, but nothing was done.
Ten years later in 1987, the first complainant against the
paedophile priest came forward again to the diocese demanding compensation from
McCabe "for ruining his life". He wanted McCabe reprimanded and to prevent him from abusing
others, or otherwise the victim would sell his story to the media.
A priest at the man's former school complained the victim
was blackmailing him. An exhaustive and comprehensive garda investigation followed
into the blackmailing allegation that went all the way to the then
commissioner's desk.
But the Director of Public Prosecutions refused to
prosecute.
Only then did gardaí begin an investigation of the victim's
original complaint of sexual assault.
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