The South Eastern Health Board is satisfied that its staff responded well to allegations in 1988 that the late Fr Jim Grennan sexually abused children in Monageer church in County Wexford.
The finding emerges in a report submitted to the Department of Health in 1996, which the board released today. It also recalls that Fr Grennan vehemently denied the allegations after they had been confirmed as true by the board's director of community care.
In his report, Martin Hynes, the board's programme manager rejected suggestions by a former board member, Gary O'Halloran, that colleagues engaged in a conspiracy of silence concerning the case.
He also said he was unaware of any such conspiracy within the Gardaí or any other state agency. The case is now to be investigated as part of the state inquiry into the handling of clerical child abuse in the Catholic diocese of Ferns.
