Ferns Inquiry

The Ferns Inquiry (2005) was an official Irish government inquiry into the allegations of clerical sexual abuse in the Irish Catholic Diocese of Ferns.

"The Ferns Rerport was presented to the Irish government on 25 October 2005 and released the following day. It identified more than 100 allegations of child sexual abuse made between 1962 and 2002 against twenty-one priests operating under the aegis of the Diocese of Ferns. The nature of the response by the Church authorities in the Diocese of Ferns to allegations of child sexual abuse by priests operating under the aegis of the diocese had varied over the forty years to 2002.

Between 1960 and 1980, the Report found that Bishop Herlihy treated child sexual abuse by priests of his diocese exclusively as a moral problem. He transferred priests against whom allegations had been made, to a different post or a different diocese for a period of time but then returned them to their former position. By 1980, Bishop Herlihy recognised that there was a psychologicial or medical dimension to the issue of child sexual abuse. Some priests in respect of whom allegations had been made were sent to a psychologist. However, decisions by Bishop Herlihy to appoint to curacies priests against whom allegations had been made and in respect of whom a respected clerical psychologist had expressed his concerns in unambiguous terms as to their suitability to interact with young people.

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