An investigation in the Diocese of Ferns in Ireland brought out:

    * The failure of Bishop Donal Herlihy to exclude clearly unsuitable candidates from the priesthood;
    * His failure to report incidents of proven sexual abuse to the legal authorities and his failure to acknowledge that abusers needed to be kept from children;
    * The failure of his successor, Brendan Comiskey, to report incidents of abuse and remove abusers from positions where they worked with children.

Among the cases revealed were

    * The rape of teenage girls on the altar of a church by one priest;
    * The use of blackmail by another priest to force children to perform sex acts on him;

In the Diocese of Tuam, an eight-year (1999-2007) enquiry and report by Dr Elizabeth Healy and Dr Kevin McCoy into the Brothers of Charity Congregation's "Holy Family School" in Galway, the major city of the archdiocese, and two other locations was made public in December 2007. 11 brothers and 7 other staff members were alleged to have abused 21 intellectually-disabled children in residential care in the period 1965-1998. By 2007, two members of staff were convicted of abuse, eight had died and the rest had retired.

There were also proven accusations in the Diocese of Dublin.

These are in addition to the Magdalen Laundries and the Bishop of Galway's son.

The Catholic Church in Ireland has taken quite a tumble in recent years. Now the London Times reports (2/28/2008) that within 20 years Ireland will run out of priests.