A PROMINENT Wexford figure has revealed that he has made a statement to gardai in relation to sexual abuse he suffered while attending the Christian Brother Secondary School in the early 1980s.
He is one of four victims who have in recent weeks made statements at Wexford Garda Station in relation to historic claims of sexual abuse against a cleric who is a former teacher at the Wexford school.
The victim claimed that he reported the abuse to local gardai in the 1990s, but at that time no charges were pursued.
However, on foot of a an article that appeared in this newspaper on October 21st, which detailed “identical” claims by another victim, he was prompted to contact the investigating officers who are now pursuing a fresh criminal investigation into the allegations.
He is among three men who have in the past two weeks made allegations against the cleric.
All of the men, including the original claimant, are now aged in their 40s.
Garda detectives from the Criminal Investigations Bureau in Harcourt Street, Dublin, and a senior local garda are leading the investigation.
A file has been sent to the Director of Public Prosecution, who will decide whether to press charges against the brother, who is now aged in his 70s.
The alleged abuser is not originally from Wexford and currently resides in another county in Leinster. However, it is known that he has previously spoken out nationally denying allegations of child abuse levelled against the Catholic Church.
One of the men revealed to The Echo that he first reported the abuse in the mid 1990s when he was in his 20s.
“It was around the time of the Brendan Smith affair, which brought down the Reynold/Spring government. On foot of that, people began to understand more about paedophilia and the nature of it…that paedophiles would repeat these acts. I remember walking home from work and thinking I had to do something, I couldn’t just let it go because what if he was up in that school and still doing this?” said the second victim to come forward.
He continued: “At that time he was not charged, but I know that he was moved out of Wexford to a Dublin school run by the Christian Brothers.”
During his time teaching in Wexford, the brother was responsible for the underage hurling teams.
“The abuse would happen in the shower room afterwards. He would during training get us all to dive in the mud and practice blocking the ball…it was all unnecessary and just to make us get as dirty as possible so we would have to shower afterwards.”
Another victim revealed that the he was abused on a number of occasions during his summer holidays when he was asked to help with maintenance work on the school grounds.
The victim claims that every evening after he completed tasks such as painting and greasing the goalposts on the school pitch, the cleric would insist that the boy took a shower so as not to return home dirty.
He also spoke of the fear he experienced and how the abuse affected his emotional health.
“I could never tell my parents, or anyone. Like most families at the time, we were very Catholic. The priest would visit the house every Saturday evening. We all trusted priests and people in positions like that,” he said.
He continued: “At this point I just really hope that other victims who suffered at the hands of this man will find the courage to come forward and report it to the gardai.”