The powers and remit of proposed cross-border bodies will be one of the knottier problems negotiators will face when the Northern talks resume next month. But I have an idea which might help.
Nationalists will want the institutions to have executive authority, so as to emphasise the all-Ireland nature of a new settlement. Unionists, on the other hand, will oppose anything which looks like a breach in the border.
But maybe both sides would agree to a cross border Inquiry into the role of the Catholic Church in child sex abuse since partition.
The Unionists might agree not for the noblest of reasons to an all-Ireland Tribunal under a cross-border panel of judges armed with powers to compel witness and subpoena documents in both jurisdictions, so as to bring to account not only Catholic Church personnel but officials of both States who may have been in dereliction of duty in the matter.
The all-Ireland dimension of the affair has been evident in the cases of Father Brendan Smyth and Father Gerald McCallion, each of whom abused children in both jurisdictions, and arises more generally from the fact that the Catholic Church itself is an all-Ireland body, mainly based in the South but with its head office in Armagh in the North.
If this seems too fanciful a suggestion, then let s have two separate State inquiries.
The fact that there is not, yet, a major campaign for a State inquiry or inquiries into the child sex abuse scandal is evidence of the kid glove treatment the Catholic Church continues to receive in coverage of the issue from political parties and the media, North and South. This, in turn, highlights yet again the overweening arrogance of the most senior Church officials in continuing to complain about the mild strictures which have appeared from time to time in some media outlets.
Consider the contrast between the response by State authorities in Ireland to the unended series of sex abuse scandals involving clergy, and the response by the State in Britain to the individual child abuse scandals of the past decade, such as at Cleveland and in the Orkney Islands.
There are obvious dissimilarities as well as similarities in the cases. In Cleveland and Orkney, the task of the inquiries was to discover whether the State had intervened too aggressively upon receipt of abuse allegations. The complaint here is that the exact opposite happened.
The fact to focus on is that, in Britain, the State required all who had information in their possession to produce it and to submit themselves to cross-examination, and to make available all relevant documentation. That s what should happen here.
I have made the point before that if what we now know about the Catholic Church with regard to child sex abuse, we knew about, say, a sporting organisation, the State, or States, would have long ago established a formal inquiry.
The argument for a State inquiry is strengthened by the fact that in some cases children were abused while in the custody of the State itself, it having handed over its responsibilities for the children concerned to religious orders or other organs of the Catholic Church which were never less than eager about taking the responsibility on.
Clerical abusers in a number of instances were acting as agents of the State, discharging statutory responsibilities, at the time the abuse took place.
In one case in the North there s no reason to believe it was unique the sexual abuse of a boy began literally within minutes of his being handed over to a member of the De La Salle order by the senior social worker who had driven him 100 miles to make the delivery. The decision to put the boy in the care of order had been taken at a case conference which involved at least three professionals employed by the State precisely to safeguard his health and welfare.
The boy in question, who was eventually to become a friend of my own, was tormented by memories of his experiences for years afterwards and eventually, last year, hanged himself from a fire-escape.
Nobody at all has been brought to book for this, nor is there any ongoing inquiry into how it came about.
An inquiry needs to be established to examine all documents now held by central and diocesan Catholic Church authorities containing allegations of or information about child sex abuse. For all we know, the shredders have already done their work. But the Catholic Church is generally meticulous in its keeping of records and it is distinctly possible that relevant records, letters and memoranda are currently held in office filing cabinets and archives of various sorts.
We know of letters and documentation which were in the possession of Church officials in the recent past: if they cannot now be produced, an explanation of their disappearance should be called for.
The relevant Catholic Church officials, including a number of bishops as well as the cardinal, Cathal Daly, should be required to explain in public on a case-by-case basis how they responded to allegations of child sex abuse by clergy which came to their attention over the years. What did they know and when did they know it?
There is nothing vengeful or vindictive in this approach. It merely adopts in relation to the Catholic Church the attitude which would seem obvious to all were it another institution we dealt with.
As I say, if it were officials of, for example, the Irish Amateur Boxing Association or of the Fianna Fail party, for that matter who were now being processed in batches through the courts for the systematic abuse of children down the years, and if there were compelling evidence that local and national leaders of the organisation had been aware all along that this was happening and had either taken no action about it or had conspired to cover it up, a Tribunal would already be in session which would make the matters which recently came to light at Dublin Castle seem the gewgaw peccadilloes of an amiable rogue.
Charlie Haughey didn t abuse children. n