Children safe in Church

AS Dr Willie Walsh heads into the final few weeks of his tenure as Bishop of Killaloe, he has once again spoken of his anguish in dealing with the issue of clerical sexual abuse. No other aspect of his 16-year ministry as a bishop has occupied as much time, or energy and carried with it so much pain and shame, he said this week.

Bishop Walsh has also revealed that there has been no complaint of child sexual abuse against any Catholic priest in the diocese about anything that happened since 1990. The bishop did qualify this statement by adding that all the cases he dealt with related to pre-1990 complaints and he couldn’t guarantee that nothing happened since then.
Nevertheless, at the launch of a new diocesan policy document, Safeguarding Children on Tuesday night, the bishop stated quite unequivocally that the Church could now “guarantee” it is a very safe place for children. He said he is confident that the Diocese of Killaloe has done all it can to ensure the clerical child sexual abuse that has happened in the past will not happen again.
Bishop Walsh said, “I am confident that we [the Church] have done all that is humanly possible that what has happened in the past will not happen again. And we can guarantee that children involved in church activities that it is a very safe place to be involved, as it ought to be.”
Safeguarding Children is a policy and procedures document, which outlines preventative measures, training, definitions, principles and procedures for safeguarding children in all aspects of church activity.
The new policy differs in that it tries to have one approach for the whole Church. The diocese is subscribing to the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, which allows them at any stage to come and have a look at how the Church monitors child safeguarding issues in the diocese. The document also emphasises a stronger collaboration between the statutory authorities and the Church.
It is made quite clear that outside of the confessional, any disclosures of abuse to anybody in the Church structure will not be protected by confidentiality and will be reported to the relevant statutory authorities. It has also been spelled out that the Church will be working very closely with the HSE and gardaí in the diocese in trying to ensure that children are safe.
Where an allegation is made to the Church, the complainant will be encouraged to follow up by reporting it to the gardaí and to the HSE also. This, thankfully, brings an end to the separate approach of Church and State in dealing with sex abuse cases. Unity of purpose and shared information should help shield children from being targeted by abusers.

Limerick Tunnel creates opportunities
WHILE the quarrel continues about where the Clare and Limerick boundaries should begin and end, this issue became somewhat irrelevant this week as the two neighbours merged seamlessly beneath the majestic River Shannon.
On Tuesday, Taoiseach Brian Cowen officially opened the €660m Limerick Tunnel project, which provides a major improvement to the infrastructural facilities of the Mid-West. The new route, which is designed to take up to 40,000 vehicles a day away from Limerick city centre, connects the N/M-18 Galway-Ennis-Limerick Road to the M7 Dublin to Limerick route and also completes the southern bypass of Limerick City
Completed ahead of schedule, the new scheme comprises 10km of dual carriageway, 11 bridges, five underpasses, two toll plazas and its own traffic management system. The centrepiece of the project is the 900m tunnel, 675m of which is under the river, and this was the most challenging engineering part of the system.
The Taoiseach described the new road system as a key part of Ireland’s national road infrastructure, which would improve access and support economic growth. It delivers, he said, another key link in the Atlantic Road Corridor, a major focus of the Government’s Transport 21 initiative. Pledging to keep apace with this project, which stretches from the top of Donegal all the way to Waterford, via Sligo, Galway, Limerick and Cork, Mr Cowen said it will be the primary focus of the roads element of the Government’s Transport 21 initiative, once the major inter-urban routes are completed at the end of this year. He added that the Gort to Crusheen bypass may well open ahead of schedule later this year.
The Limerick Tunnel will undoubtedly bring benefits to the city and the Mid-West generally as connectivity is a serious consideration for potential investors looking at location options. For existing companies, the tunnel will speed up business meetings or transportation of goods for commercial or retail deliveries or export. It will create opportunities for business expansion.
The new road network will also come as a welcome boost for Shannon Airport as it brings a considerably bigger number of people in the south and south-east of the country within its catchment area.
The new tunnel must be promoted as a new gateway to County Clare by tourism, business and industry organisations, both locally and nationally.
Of course, for some motorists, there is a downside to the wonderful feat of road engineering and construction – the price they will have to pay to use it. The idea of paying a toll of €1.80, or €5.70 in the case of truck drivers, to traverse the highway and avoid the lights and junctions of Limerick is something that people will have to come to terms with. Motorists, generally speaking, want to drive in the best possible conditions and, in much the same way as paying for public parking, will eventually accept it as yet another unavoidable expense. The frustration of motorists upset by the charges must, however, be weighed against the huge benefits that will accrue from the tunnel. There will always be the option of the long way round.