Agree he came across badly and would have been happy to see the ground cut beneath him.
However if the facts on this case came out before he was spokesperson it might be hard for this story to get legs.
Maybe VB has some other case up his sleeve.

RM had the arrogance of someone who'd already seen the nitty-gritty. Again, another example of "if it's not technically illegal, it's not morally wrong". It's a pity there actually isn't a hell like they wanted us to belive ... it would have been nice to see some people slowly toast.

Very apt, it was like lining your 50 man flying column up behind a hedge, waiting for the Black and tan Crossley tenders armed with two lewis guns and overhead wire netting, and then shouting Bang and throwing a stick.

Mullen wants equality between the voices of the abused and those complicit in the cover up of the abuses.

The wounds of abuse will never heal if we betray the balanced view 04 December 2001 By Ronan Mullen

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Cardinal Connell, Archbishop of Dublin provided Fr. Ivan Payne with a loan of £30,000 in 1993 to satisfy an out-of-court settlement with an abused victim. In May 1995 Connell told RTE that he had not paid any money in compensation to any victim of clercial child sexual abuse. He even threatened to sue RTÉ "to say that we paid compensation is completely untrue". He never did sue.

Connell told a 2002 press conference that a trawl of his files covered the previous 50 years - back to 1945 - after which he supplied the names of 17 priests to the Garda and the names of those who made the complaints.

May 2007 in an 'update' on findings of a 'new' and ongoing trawl he initiated through the same diocesan files, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin disclosed that since 1940 they had found records of abuse allegations (135) and suspicions (12) made against 147 priests in the archdiocese, involving 380 people known or suspected to have been sexually abused.

Does one conclude that those 130 priests absent from the cardinal's 2002 disclosures of his 1995 trawl, had allegations/suspicions levelled at them between 1940 and 1945, and between 1995 and 2007 - that additional 17-year period covered by Archbishop Martin's trawl?

Or must we conclude that the cardinal adopted a narrower definition of what constituted such abuse?

__________________

I watch Browne most nights and find him amusing but dont like him on a personal level. To me he is just another shallow stirrer in the Eamon Dunphy mould. For a moment I thought he was after putting his foot in it with Mullen and had visions of a big court settlement. It will blow over but would love to be wrong

Think he maybe did put his foot in it. His specific allegation was that Ronan Mullen in his capacity as diocesan spokesperson dealt in a dishonest way with the issue of the Payne payment. As far as i can ascertain the details of this payment were in the public domain before Mullen was appointed.

Nah' Browne was on the ball, and didnt back down. He also caught Mullen out in the end when he said he wanted to make a good point -but Mullen instead made a different statement -which he was entitled to do -but Browne exposed him by saying everyone around the table knew he asked to say something entirely different.

Mullen sounded far more worried than someone who was just sure of himself. Browne was more measured and sure footed and is around far too long to walk himself into something he wasnt a 100% sure about.

Mullen became spokesperson in '96. Admission on payne case made before that.

Never trust a zealot and especially religious ones.