A group representing victims of clerical sexual abuse in Ireland accused the Vatican yesterday of failing to accept responsibility for creating a “culture of cover-ups”.

The criticism by the One in Four group followed the Vatican’s publication of the findings of an investigation into abuse scandals, issued by senior Catholic Church officials who were sent to Ireland by Pope Benedict XVI.

The report acknowledged that Irish bishops had made progress in protecting children following decades of scandals involving children being abused by priests, nuns or in religious schools. But One in Four’s executive director Maeve Lewis said the Vatican had failed to address the issue of why the Catholic Church in Ireland had protected abusing priests for decades.

“While we welcome the findings of the Visitation that the Irish Church now has good child protection practices in place, we feel it is a lost opportunity to address the role played by the Vatican in perpetuating the policy of protecting abusive priests at the expense of children,” said Ms Lewis.

Irish bishops said in response to the report that they wanted to associate themselves with the “great sense of pain and shame” that “innocent young people were abused by clerics and religious to whose care they had been entrusted”.