Taoiseach Micheál Martin has branded revelations about abuse in the Spiritan order “sickening” and “shocking”.
A documentary on RTÉ Radio 1 earlier this week revealed a new sex abuse scandal including accusations by 230 alleged victims against 77 clerics.
The allegations include claims by 57 people that they were abused as children at Blackrock College in Dublin from the 1970s.
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The Order has paid out over €5 million in compensation to 12 victims since 2004, according to the Spiritans’ current Provincial leader Fr Martin Kelly.
Gardaí has confirmed that some of the allegations had been referred to them.
There have also been allegations against other Holy Ghost, now known as the Spiritan Order, and Jesuit schools.
The Taoiseach said on Friday that it was important for the gardaí to investigate these claims to the “greatest extent possible”.
“The revelation is sickening in terms of the scale, quite shocking in terms of the use of abuse involving so many people over the years,” Mr Martin told reporters in Blackpool
“I believe that existing agencies and particularly criminal justice should be applied to these cases, as I believe is happening in respect of the Spiritan cases.
“It should also apply equally in other cases, and the gardaí have been effective in many other areas where abuse has taken place.
“There should be full transparency from respective orders. I understand they have been engaging with victims.
“It is very, very shocking that such abuse happened and in the manner that it happened because it is extremely traumatising on victims and those who suffered because of this.”
Mr Martin did not directly answer if he believed that a commission or investigation should be set up to look at the alleged abuse.
However, he noted previous inquiries have effectively “lifted the veil on the extent of the scale of abuse in Ireland”.
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