Irish Catholic church child protection gap 'remains'

Gaps remain in the Catholic church in Ireland's procedures for protecting children, the man in charge of child protection for the church has said.

Ian Elliott, CEO of the National Board for Safeguarding Children, said there were too many policies at local level.

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He said that changes were needed in a number of areas.

"We don't have any national standards with regards to the management of risky people within the church, that is a major deficit for us," he said.

"We also need to redefine the policy which exists in relation to what is termed stepping aside, administrative leave when an allegation or complaint is made against a member of the clergy, how that is processed I think that isn't good enough at this point in time."

A series of reports have been critical of how the church handled allegations of abuse.

In last year's Murphy report it was stated that church leaders in the Dublin Archdiocese knew that children were being sexually abused by priests for decades but did not act to prevent it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/no...554149.stm