Chai Brady
Bishop John McAreavey A clarification from RTÉ accepting that there was no evidence for a claim that Bishop John McAreavey concealed child abuse has apparently disappeared from the station’s website.
On Morning Ireland in August it was stated that the diocese had hidden documents concerning child sexual abuse from a child safeguarding audit led by the National board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church.
However, in an article published on www.rte.ie on January 16, the national broadcaster said it now “accepts that there is no evidence of such concealment by the diocese or by its then Bishop John McAreavey, and is happy to provide this clarification”.
The Irish Catholic understands that this clarification was sought by Dr McAreavey and that RTÉ also agreed to pay a sum to charity on the bishop’s behalf because of the error.
However, this week a link to the clarification was not working and the article appears to have been removed from the RTÉ website. Despite repeated calls, a number of spokespersons for RTÉ spoken to by The Irish Catholic were unable to provide clarity on the status of the clarification.
When this newspaper checked the clarification published it was no longer active on RTÉ’s website, only the message ‘Page Not Found’.
The allegations, which were reported by a number of news outlets in the second week of August last year, related to the Diocese of Dromore’s handling of allegations against the late Fr Malachy Finnegan.
The diocese initially responded to the allegation in a statement issued on August 11 which stated that the diocese gave access “to all available records and the review made reference to those files and acknowledged the work of Bishop McAreavey in the field of safeguarding”.
Bishop McAreavey’s resignation was accepted by Pope Francis last year, six years before he was due to step down.