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THE MINISTER FOR Justice Alan Shatter is insisting that legislation on mandatory reporting of crimes contained in the Criminal Justice bill will “apply regardless of any internal rules of any religious grouping”.
It comes in the wake of comments made by Cardinal Seán Brady yesterday, which have been seen as an attack on the new rules which will make it an offence not to report a crime, including admissions of child abuse made to a priest during confession. The Criminal Justice Bill is set to be introduced later this year.
Speaking to pilgrims in Knock yesterday to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Mother Teresa Cardinal Brady said that confession was a “sacred and precious rite” and that that any attempt to undermine it represents a “challenge to the very basis of a free society”. While he did not make direct reference to the legislation he did say:
The inviolability of the seal of confession is so fundamental to the very nature of the Sacrament that any proposal that undermines that inviolability is a challenge to the right of every Catholic to freedom of religion and conscience.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice told TheJournal.ie that the government is determined that the legislation will be enacted in the next parliamentary session, and that child protection is the central focus and concern of the government, along with the reporting of allegations of child abuse to the Gardaí:
It is the failure in the past to make such reports that had led sexual predators into believing that they have impunity and facilitated paedophiles preying on children and destroying their lives.
Last month Minister for Children Francis Fitzgerald insisted that there would be no exemptions for priests who heard admissions of child abuse during confession. The minister said that the new rules on mandatory reporting would apply to everyone and that there will be ” no exceptions, no exemptions”.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme today Monsignor Hugh Connolly, president of St. Patrick’s College in Maynooth said that the seal of the confession is “positive and central” to the universal teaching of the church. He also said that he felt that the focus on the issue of the confessional seal as part of the wider debate has been “somewhat overdone”.
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This country really has turned into a Slum.
Why am I not surprised it’s beyond a joke at this stage
@Kenny Jones: sex always has been and always will be a currency……
I remember a Rathmines landlord having this kind of “arrangement” with a tenant as far back as 1992. He had a wife and kids in Navan at the time. Not a new phenomenon at all.
@Jane Gunnigan: The wife in Navan will now be checking on her husband’s property in Rathmines I992. Thing could get hot!
@Jane Gunnigan: Durable relationship
@Patrice Ahern: The marriage would be considered a durable relationship and exploitative relationship would not… really isn’t that difficult.
@Diarmuid Hunt: I wouldn’t bet on the marriage remaining a durable relationship either, and many, many are not.
@Thomas Sheridan: I would think that in the context of law that it would be especially in an scenario where it is in comparison to sex-for-rent arrangement.
Economists warned our political class that all the evidence internationally says that introducing rent caps, eviction bans etc etc in a market where the main issue is lack of supply will result in less supply, higher rents and they did not listen. SF are equally guilty as the main drum beaters for irresponsible policy. We need more politicians with engineering or science backgrounds, people who understand that words don’t create reality, and that cause leads to effect whether or not you wag your finger at it in the Dail. We need to build. Any policy to encourage building now is good. Any policy that discourages it is bad.
@Tom D: When it starts hurting FDI which must be close now they’ll start to do something. That’s all they understand.
@Tom D: We also need an electorate who will vote for such people – and telling the truth is not what people vote for. People vote to for money for nothing, basically. Daft policies come from daft politicians elected by said voters.
@Tom D: we also need less scammers and chancers claiming international protection
@Tom D: there is no lack of supply for houses in Ireland. The 2022 census listed 163,433 vacant properties in the country, most of them being in the Dublin region, with specialists saying this number could be over 180,000 in 2024. Saying there is a lack of supply is a bit of an oversimplification of the problem and doesn’t reflect the whole picture. While there is a shortage of available housing, there are a lot of reasons behind it, one of them being keeping the fallacy of housing crises to keep rent and property prices going up.
@Eduardo: One example of this is the apts by the ifsc at the Quays. The average occupancy level of some of those buildings is 60%. All apts are built to rent, but if landlords bring the rent down to increase occupancy, this will affect the prices of the other tenants, and bring down market evaluation in the area. So they keep a lower occupancy, and high rent. Nothing is as simple as the media portraits.
@Tom D: the Dail is full of Teachers (the only ones that have the time for canvassing) who have never ran anything but want to run the country!
A type of mania has set in. I got a notice for a 62% increase from what was previously a fair landlord. As young people work harder to satisfy this mania for a few blocks and a wooden roof, an unhealthy imbalance in society exists.
There is your survival of the fittest ( aggressive/greedy) with a younger generation playing along.
@Gerald Kelleher: The capitalist mania of taking advantage of anyone they can goes against what has, through the lens of evolution, made us a dominant species. You do yourself a disservice to equate the two.
No need to panic the government has the housing situation fully under control they have seen it worsen tremendously over the last 10 years and say if they are re-elected they will solve it this time. like they said the last time but this time they said they will,lessons learned by droves living in tents and inviting droves more in we will actually get to a stage that we may run out of tents as we have housing a great legacy by a government seeing the problems coming head on.
Will it also be illegal to offer sex in lieu of rent?
Vote no
Don’t make it an offence, make it a crime.
How do they get change back?
#your choice
How can they get away with advertising something like this? Bloody perverts.
If you have to sell your body so that you can study you would be better off forgetting college. No career is worth that.
@JP: But it is socially more acceptable with a sugar daddy, right?
Or for an EU passport or any desirable one?
This country has been in free-fall for years.. not surprised to read about this .There are plenty of schemers , scammers , strokers , shceisters , shady f#####s walking among us , that were born in this country .. yet still foreign nationals get demonised and scapegoated on a regular basis
have your say