THE CHIEF executive of the Catholic Church’s National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC) has warned that proposed legislation on mandatory reporting could weaken the church’s policy on child protection.Ian Elliott has said the Government’s Criminal Justice (Withholding of Information on Offences against Children and Vulnerable Persons) Bill, 2012, “will not achieve what it intends unless it is amended”.
His concern centres on “the proposed and currently inadequately qualified defence of ‘reasonable excuse’ in failing to disclose information around defined offences against children” in the Bill.
He said the provision in the proposed legislation allows exceptions where mandatory reporting is concerned, and these are not contained in the church’s guidelines.
As matters stood “it is foreseeable that our existing church policy, designed to safeguard children, might be materially weakened by the very legislation that has been promoted by Government as a means to strengthen it”.
He said there was “a danger that this legislation will not achieve what it intends unless it is amended”.
Mr Elliott made his comments in the annual report of the NBSC for the year ended April 1st last.
It had been notified of about 237 additional clerical child sex abuse cases in the year to April 1st.
These involved 196 priests and other religious, and originated predominantly from adults who complained of abuse that took place in their childhood. Just six related to alleged abuse that occurred since the year 2000. The figure represents a drop on the previous year, when 272 new reports were made to the NBSC.
In his report, Mr Elliott recalled that “in November last year, the first tranche of review reports was released by the six dioceses that were audited”.
He said “the second tranche of reviews is well under way, which will involve a further four dioceses along with three religious orders. It is our hope that the review reports will then be released, following the example of the six dioceses within the first tranche”.
Over the past year the NBSC responded to 156 requests for advice and support across the church, with 89 coming from the 26 dioceses and 67 from 30 religious congregations.
Such requests totalled 104 for the previous year, which was an increase on the 99 requested in the year before that.