A leading columnist has slammed Government proposals to force priests to break the seal of confession if someone confesses to them that they have been guilty of child abuse. 

Mary Kenny, writing in the Irish Independent, said that the proposed legislation, announced last week in the wake of the Cloyne Report, would be “a dangerous step for a free society”.

The proposed legislation would make it compulsory for priests, and others, to reveal knowledge of child abuse to the civil authorities. The offence is set to be punishable with up to five years in prison.

The announcement came after a judicial commission investigating the Diocese of Cloyne revealed that allegations of abuse were being mishandled and withheld from the police as recently as 2008.

However Ms Kenny said that the proposal had the potential to “backfire”. She said that the proposals had “implications for a range of professionals and it could also backfire in the treatment of paedophile offenders”.

She suggested that such a law might make it far more difficult for a paedophile to seek treatment from medical professionals.

She said that paedophiles needed treatment and added that, if “the full weight of the law is invoked if an individual confesses — to priest or psychiatrist — that he is troubled by this tendency, then treatment will be deterred”.

She added: “Forcing a priest to disclose what has occurred in the confessional is also a dangerous step for a free society.

“It dents trust. It all but abolishes private conversations. It makes every professional an agent of the State, and there is a word for a society in which everyone is a potential agent of the State: fascism.”

Taoiseach Enda Kenny said last week that canon law would not be allowed to supersede state law.

Ms Fitzgerald, meanwhile, said the government was not concerned about “the rules governing any body”.

“This is about the law of the land. It’s about child protection. Are we saying … if a child is at risk of child sexual abuse that should not be reported? We cannot say that. The law of the land is clear and unambiguous,” she said.

Bishop John McAreavey of Dromore told the American Catholic News Service that the bishops would await the publication of the legislation before assessing it. However, he said, he felt it was “unreal to suggest that the seal of confession has prevented the reporting of the abuse of children”.

The new legislation is not expected to be published this autumn, and sources close to the Irish bishops’ conference expected that a heavy lobbying campaign would get under way to ensure that a suitable exemption is considered.