BISHOP OF GALWAY Michael Duignan has said the internment of former bishop Eamonn Casey in the crypt beneath the Galway Cathedral is under “careful consideration” after he was described in a recent RTÉ documentary as a sexual predator. 

Bishop Duignan described Casey’s burial in the crypt as “a very sensitive issue that deeply affects people in different ways, and which has different facets”. Casey was buried there in 2017.

“The interment of Bishop Casey in the Cathedral crypt now requires a period of careful consideration and consultation, which has already begun,” he said in a statement today. 

“Time and space are required to adequately and appropriately bring this undertaking to completion.” 

Last Tuesday, Duignan said the Church was “working with anybody affected, to help bring truth, healing and peace to such terribly painful situations.” 

The former CEO of The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland, Ian Elliott, described Eamonn Casey as “a sexual predator” in an RTÉ documentary titled Bishop Casey’s Buried Secrets.

The programme examined the Catholic Church’s handling of allegations against Casey, who died in 2017 at the age of 89.

It included an interview with Casey’s niece, Patricia Donovan, who claimed that he first raped her at the age of five and that the sexual abuse continued for years. 

It also revealed how a six-figure settlement was paid by the Catholic Church to one complainant after Casey’s death, and that the Vatican banned Casey from public ministry in 2007 following “allegations”. 

Casey consistently denied all the allegations of child sexual abuse made against him. Although all the complaints were reported to An Garda Síochána, he was never charged with, or prosecuted for, any sexual crimes.

With reporting from Jane Moore