Report reveals more Irish Church abuse

13 July 2011 Last updated at 15:38 GMT The Cloyne report was critical of Bishop John Magee A report published on Wednesday has criticised a Catholic diocese in County Cork for a failure to report all complaints of abuse to police.

The Commission of Investigation into the Diocese of Cloyne investigated how allegations against 19 priests were dealt with between 1996 and 2009.

The report said Bishop of Cloyne John Magee could not avoid "responsibility by blaming subordinates".

The Catholic Church has apologised following the report.

The leader of Ireland's Catholics, Cardinal Sean Brady, said it was another "dark day in the history of the response of church leaders to the cry of children abused by church personnel".

"The findings of this report confirm that grave errors of judgement were made and serious failures of leadership occurred," he said

"This is deplorable and totally unacceptable."

Bishop Magee was one of the priests identified by the commission.

The Cloyne report, which runs to 400 pages, said there were concerns about Bishop Magee's interaction with a 17-year-old boy.

"The commission regrets that it has not been possible to report the case involving concerns about Bishop Magee without identifying him," the report said.

"Concerns were expressed about his interaction with a 17-year-old boy."

It said the teenager, who had been contemplating joining the priesthood, was concerned that "the behaviour of the bishop towards him, which had not perturbed him at the time, was, on reflection, disquieting".

However, the report said it was satisfied that this case had been dealt with appropriately.

The Newry-born Bishop Magee stepped aside in 2009 after an earlier report criticised his handling of abuse allegations.

The Cloyne report, which was published by Justice Minister Alan Shatter and Children's Minister Frances Fitzgerald, said the response of the diocese to allegations of child sexual abuse for the period of 1996 to 2008 was "inadequate and inappropriate".

It said it was a "remarkable fact" that Bishop Magee had taken "little or no active interest" in the management of clerical sexual abuse cases until 2008. This was 12 years after the rules on how to deal with such matters were implemented by the church.

It added that Bishop Magee had to "a certain extent, detached himself from the day to day management of child sexual abuse cases".

"Bishop Magee was head of the diocese and cannot avoid his responsibility by blaming subordinates whom he wholly failed to supervise," the report said.

Complaints

The commission said it was aware of some 40 people who may have been affected by clerical abuse in the diocese.

All but two complaints came from people who were adults at the time the complaint was made.

The report said between 1995 and 2005 there were 15 complaints against clergy in the diocese which should have been reported.

The most serious lapse was the failure to report the two cases in which the alleged victims were minors at the time the complaint was made.

It also said there was no communication with a neighbouring diocese when a priest who had retired because of complaints went to live there.

However, there was no case in which the diocese moved priests against whom allegations had been made.

A number of priests whom allegations were made against were "retired".

The inquiry was set up by the Irish government in January 2009 following a report published the previous month.

It was conducted by the National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC) - a body set up by the Catholic Church to oversee child protection policies.

It found child protection practices in the diocese were "inadequate and in some respects dangerous".

View the original article here

Puma reveals environmental impact

16 May 2011 Last updated at 18:04 GMT By Richard Anderson Business reporter, BBC News Chief executive Jochen Zeitz is pushing the sustainability agenda at Puma Puma has become the world's first major corporation to publish details of the cost of its impact on the environment.

The sports and leisure group said the combined cost of the carbon it emitted and water it used in 2010 was 94.4m euros ($134.3m; ?82.8m).

The figure includes the company itself and its suppliers.

Puma said the figures would help it to build a more "resilient and sustainable business model", and prepare for potential future environmental taxes.

Speaking at the launch of the company's environmental profit and loss accounts (EPnL) in London, chief executive Jochen Zeitz said reducing Puma's environmental impact would improve its future performance.

"Sustainability is essential to the health and future of our business," he said.

"The business implications of failing to address nature in decision making is clear - since ecosystem services are vital to the performance of most companies, integrating the true cost for these services in the future could have significant impacts on corporate bottom lines."

Wider interest

Puma enlisted the help of consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and environmental research group Trucost to calculate the impact of its business on nature.

They found the impact of greenhouse gases was equivalent to 47m euros, while that of water use was 47.4m euros.

The company's suppliers made up more than 87m euros of the total.

Mr Zeitz said there had already been interest from other companies, including some "pretty significant corporations", in its findings.

"I hope this will serve as a catalyst for us to work together to reduce our shared impacts across the supply chain," he added.

As a result of the environmental profit and loss calculations, Puma said it would ensure that outsourced processes such as embroidering and printing would be subject to the same environmental and social standards as its own manufacturing processes.

The company has already set a target of reducing its carbon, waste, energy and water use by 25% by 2015.

Mr Zeitz said simply offsetting carbon was not enough: "The primary objective has to be not to emit the carbon [in the first place]".

Puma hopes to publish the results of the next phase of its EPnL, which will include the cost of waste and land-use change, in the autumn.

Charges of hypocrisy have been levelled at Puma over its sponsorship of Formula 1 and Moto GP, but Mr Zeitz told the BBC that his company was actively encouraging participants in these sports to embrace the sustainable agenda.

'Financial returns'

Puma's EPnL is part of a wider move by companies to look at what is called integrated reporting, which looks to incorporate the cost and benefits of environmental and social impacts into financial accounts.

"The reporting process is going through a fundamental change," Alan McGill, partner at PwC's sustainability and climate change department, told the BBC.

"Companies are starting to understand that the sustainability agenda impacts on financial returns."

Like many other business issues, it can help companies generate revenues, minimise costs and manage risks, he said.

Driving the move to incorporate some reflection of companies' environmental impact into profit and loss accounts is the idea that the services nature provides are not infinite, and therefore should no longer be considered as free.

These so-called ecosystem services upon which businesses depend include pollination by bees, flood protection by forests and genetic resources from plants used for live-saving drugs.

As these resources become ever-more scarce, businesses will have to pay to protect them or, in some cases, replace them. In fact, in many cases they will be forced to pay, for example by regulatory instruments such as pollution taxes and higher insurance premiums.

Those companies that are taking action to reduce their environmental impact now, and therefore their associated costs, believe they can gain a competitive advantage over their rivals.

View the original article here