Statement by Brendan Boland
"I wish to acknowledge and thank Cardinal Sean Brady, for the public apology tendered by him to me and all abuse victims in his interview with Tommy Gorman as broadcast on RTÉ News on Monday the 7th May 2012. I have sought this for a long time.
"While a public apology was previously refused, I am delighted that the cardinal has relented.
"I also note, and again acknowledge, the offer of a private apology as expressed last November in the course of settlement negotiations in my case and reiterated on Monday last. I hope that I may yet find the strength to meet personally with him.
"I note that Cardinal Brady has now acknowledged that the information I gave him regarding other children being abused or at risk of abuse, should have been passed on to their parents in 1975.
"When I confided in the youth club to Father McShane in 1975, he did the right and proper thing in immediately bringing me to my parents and telling them what had been happening to me.
"It was only after that, that he informed his superiors. If the right thing had been done by Father (now Cardinal) Brady, and Bishop McKiernan, the unspeakable abuse of the other children I had sought to save would not have happened. Both Cardinal Brady and I will have to live with our guilt in that regard.
"I know that my healing, and I fear the healing of many other abuse victims, will not begin while Cardinal Brady remains as Primate of the Catholic Church in Ireland."