Bishop Eamonn Casey The former religious affairs correspondent at RTÉ has told how Bishop Eamonn Casey tried to put pressure on him in the 1980s by urging other bishops not to talk to him.
Kieron Wood – who was religious affairs correspondent for the national broadcaster from 1987-1990 – told The Irish Catholic this week that Dr Casey wanted members of the hierarchy to refuse to do interviews with him in a bid to make his role more difficult.
It comes as it was revealed this week that Bishop Casey – who stepped down as Bishop of Galway in 1992 after it was revealed he secretly fathered a child and used Church funds to support his son – stood accused of three allegations of child abuse at the time of his death in 2017.
Mr Wood recalled this week how “Bishop Casey told the bishops’ meeting in 1987 that he had Cardinal [Tomás Ó Fiaich’s] support in suggesting that all the bishops henceforth refuse to do interviews with me”.
Mr Wood said that the cardinal corrected Dr Casey saying he had permission to raise the matter at the bishops’ meeting, but not Dr Ó Fiaich’s support.
According to Mr Wood the members of the hierarchy “voted to continue to do interviews with me, and to send Dr [Brendan] Comiskey [of Ferns] to invite me to dinner to investigate me!”