Dublin, Ireland - The Irish government gave the green light on Tuesday for an inquiry into allegations Roman Catholic priests in the Dublin area sexually abused children, just two weeks after a damning report into another diocese.
"The government's decision today gives effect to the commitment I made to establish a commission to look at the grave situation which arose in the Dublin archdiocese," Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, said in a statement.
The Dublin archdiocese, which has already submitted over 22,000 documents to police in connection with child abuse allegations, said it would cooperate fully with the investigation.
"We can only begin to fully address the issue of child abuse when we establish what happened in the past," Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, said in a statement. "Horrendous damage was done to people, compounded by inadequate responses."
A similar state probe into 100 allegations against 21 priests in the diocese of Ferns in County Wexford concluded late last month that the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland covered up the abuse of young people.
McDowell said the new commission of investigation for Dublin would also have powers to look into charges that other dioceses in predominantly Catholic Ireland were not complying with child protection measures recommended in the Ferns Report.
Restoring trust in a Catholic Church seriously tarnished by a string of sex abuse scandals around the world is one of the biggest tasks facing Pope Benedict XVI after his appointment in April as leader of its 1.1 billion members.
In the United States, where bishops moved priests known to have abused minors to new parishes rather than defrocking them, some dioceses have been forced to file for bankruptcy protection against the lawsuits of victims seeking compensation.
The Ferns probe found that for 20 years a bishop in charge of the rural diocese in Ireland's south east did not expel priests against whom abuse allegations were made but simply transferred them to a different post or diocese temporarily.
The findings reignited public anger against a once-all powerful Catholic Church whose influence has been severely damaged by abuse revelations and the confidence that has come with an unprecedented economic boom.