Ferns Report - Findings

Findings

Among the facts revealed were:

• The failure of Bishop Donal J. Herlihy to exclude clearly unsuitable candidates from the priesthood and his failure to ensure that alleged abusers were kept away from children;
• His failure to report incidents of alleged sexual abuse to the legal authorities
• The failure of his successor, Brendan Comiskey, to report incidents of abuse and his failure to establish sound child protection measures; From 1990 onward he reported all allegations made by children to the authorities.
• The adoption of strict policies of immediate removal of any clergy subject to allegations by his successor, Bishop Eamon Walsh.
• Police failure to properly investigate sexual abuse complaints prior to 1990.

Among the allegations made were:

• The sexual touching of teenage girls near the altar of a church by one priest;
• The use of blackmail by another priest to force children to perform sex acts on him;
• Most allegations did not involve rape, but a range of sexual assaults from inappropriate touching to masturbation.

Multiple allegations of abuse were made against the following priests (those still alive have not been identified in the The Ferns Report):

• Fr Donal Collins, transferred from St Peter's College in Wexford to London in 1966 but returned to the College in 1968
• Fr James Doyle, ordination postponed in 1973, after a first allegation of drunken assault, but Doyle was ordained one year later.

These three are deceased:

• Fr James Grennan, sexually molested girls in Monageer church, County Wexford while he heard confession
• Canon Martin Clancy, molested his female victim in her own home
• Fr Seán Fortune ministered in the village of Poulfour in Co. Wexford, in Belfast and in Dundalk. Allegations of abuse were made against him in all three places.