RTÉ News has learned that the former Bishop of Galway, Dr Eamonn Casey, is to return to Ireland where he plans to live in retirement.
The 78-year-old resigned from office and left the country in 1992 after it was revealed that he had an affair with Annie Murphy, an America divorcee, and that he had fathered a child, her then 18-year-old son Peter.
Dr Casey has spent the past six years working as a chaplain in the diocese of Arundel and Brighton in the south of England but stood aside from his ministry there last December following reports than an allegation, of an unspecified nature, had been made against him by a middle-aged woman.
Bishop Casey also worked as a missionary priest in Equador in South America for seven years.
He is understood to have conveyed his decision to return to Ireland to the Church authorities here and in particular to the current Bishop of Galway, Dr Martin Drennan, in recent weeks and was told there would be no opposition to such a move.
It is not yet clear when he will return but RTÉ News understands that he plans to live in retirement in a rural parish in the southern end of the dioceses and not in Galway city.
Bishop Casey has been back to Galway on private visits on a number of occasions since his resignation and several opinion polls in local papers say the overwhelming majority of people in the dioceses would welcome his return.
Up to now, he had given no indication that he would return but a formal announcement confirming that he will is expected to be made this weekend.
