Cardinal Seán Brady is under renewed pressure.

Specialist detectives are reviewing claims the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland knew in 1975 that five children were being abused by one of the country’s most dangerous paedophiles.

As Cardinal Seán Brady was increasingly isolated over his role in a secret Church inquiry into evil Brendan Smyth, a series of political leaders piled further pressure on him to quit.

Abuse victims including Brendan Boland and Sam Adair and others speaking anonymously led a chorus of calls for his resignation before Ireland’s deputy prime minister Eamon Gilmore warned that anyone in authority who did not act should go.

The cardinal’s spokesman hit back at the damning collective criticism and repeated the cleric’s claim that the failure 37 years ago lay with Church superiors and not the then priest.

Mr Gilmore said: “It is my personal view that anybody who did not deal with the scale of the abuse that we have seen in this case should not hold a position of authority.”

The beleaguered cardinal has vowed to remain as Primate of All-Ireland despite new revelations in a BBC documentary over the role he played investigating allegations against Smyth and secretly interviewing two young victims.

The abuse complaints were not passed to police at the time and parents were not informed.

Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has backed calls from Taoiseach Enda Kenny for the cardinal to reflect on his position

“I think that many Catholics, of which I am one, Catholic priests amongst whom I have many good friends and the public in general will be dismayed at these new allegations,” Mr McGuinness said.

Micheal Martin, leader of opposition party Fianna Fáil in Dublin, said the cardinal should consider his position, given the enormity and scale of the abuse perpetrated by Smyth.

“I think his authority has been very seriously undermined with what has happened,” Mr Martin said.

Labour’s Education Minister Ruairi Quinn called for the resignation of the cardinal because of his position as the most senior cleric of a Church which is patron of 92% of the 3,200 primary schools in Ireland.

The cardinal was also facing wider calls to address explanations over his role in the 1975 inquiry.

Martin Long, the cardinal’s spokesman, rejected claims that there was any discrepancy or contradiction over this week’s description of the cleric as notary and the 2010 explanation which said he had been asked to conduct the investigation.

“The facts remain the same. He was not the person in charge of the inquiry,” he said.

A statement from the Church in March 2010 said Cardinal Brady, who was a teaching priest at a boarding school, had been drafted in to conduct the investigation because he held a doctorate in canon law.

In the 1975 internal Church inquiry Brendan Boland, a then 14-year-old, told investigators that at least five children had been attacked by Smyth.

The cardinal claimed his role was as notary and to submit a report and he blamed superiors in the Church for failing to stop the evil priest abusing over the next 20 years.

But the cardinal also accepted he privately interviewed one of the victims identified by Mr Boland about the abuse and did not notify the child’s parents.

Cardinal Brady, who is due to retire in 2014, also swore two victims to secrecy and the Church has since claimed this was for their protection and to prevent Smyth, who died in prison in 1997, from manipulating evidence.

A senior Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) commander, Assistant Chief Constable George Hamilton, said a decision on whether to launch an investigation into the claims levelled against Cardinal Brady would not be taken until the evidence was fully assessed.

A team already investigating alleged institutional abuse in the region is reviewing the documentary to see if there was prima facie evidence that an offence had taken place.

Mr Hamilton vowed his officers would “do the right thing” based on where the evidence led them.

He said he would not comment on whether the police had plans to interview Cardinal Brady although question marks remain over whether the PSNI holds jurisdictional responsibility, given that the programme focused on historic incidents on both sides of the Irish border.

Later, the Garda press office in Dublin declined to comment on whether it was investigating the circumstances around the inquiry.

Mr Gilmore, who also holds the post of minister for foreign affairs, oversaw the decision to close down the Irish embassy in the Vatican last year. That move was made as part of huge cost-cutting measures, the Government said.

Mr Gilmore also stated that he believed in the separation of church and state.

Some children were abused by Smyth for years after the internal Church inquiry.

It was not until 1994 that Smyth was convicted in a Belfast court of 17 counts of sexual abuse. Three years later in Dublin, he pleaded guilty to another 74 counts of child sexual abuse. He died in prison in 1997.

Cardinal Seán Brady. (Pic: Paul Faith/PA)

The beleaguered head of the Catholic Church in Ireland Cardinal Seán Brady has vowed to stay on as he attempted to distance himself from a secret inquiry into one of the country’s most dangerous paedophiles.

Even though he was part of the 1975 investigation into allegations Father Brendan Smyth had attacked at least five children, the Cardinal blamed superiors for failing to stop the evil priest abusing over the next 20 years.

Rejecting growing demands for his resignation, he declared: “There’s no cloaking over or brushing under the carpet.

“We’re not hiding behind procedures. There was no desire on my part to cover up, it was to make sure that this abuse stopped.”

Cardinal Brady, who is due to retire in 2014, faced renewed and deepening demands to quit over the scandal after it emerged a then 14-year-old victim of Smyth’s warned him in secret interviews that it was likely the late priest was abusing five other named children.

“I was shocked, appalled and outraged when I first discovered in the mid-1990s that Brendan Smyth had gone on to abuse others,” he said.

Amid the clamour for his resignation, Church sources indicated an assistant would be appointed to support the Cardinal by the end of the year – at least two years after the request was first made. It is expected the coadjutor bishop will ultimately take over in the Armagh Archdiocese when the Cardinal retires aged 75.

The Primate – a canon lawyer and part-time diocesan secretary at the time – said he regretted some actions during the inquiry but insisted responsibility for the Smyth scandal does not lie with him. He blamed Fr Kevin Smith, the superior in Smyth’s Norbertine Order.

He also claimed that as a priest supporting the investigation, even under today’s rules which enforce mandatory reporting, he would not have been the person responsible for alerting authorities.

“I wasn’t scared or intimidated, not at all,” the Cardinal said.

“I took down everything I heard and referred it back to the people who were in a position to act.”

The Cardinal also claimed his role in the internal Church inquiry – officially recorded as note-taker – had been deliberately exaggerated and misrepresented in a BBC documentary aired this week.

“With others, I feel betrayed that those who had the authority in the Church to stop Brendan Smyth failed to act on the evidence I gave them. However, I also accept that I was part of an unhelpful culture of deference and silence in society and the Church, which thankfully is now a thing of the past,” he said.

Cardinal Brady, a boarding school teacher in Cavan at the time of the inquiry, was drafted in to record confidential interviews with victim Brendan Boland. He was told the names and addresses of another five victims.

Then a priest aged 33, he went on to conduct a second private interview with another victim to corroborate the allegations against Smyth. He did not tell the child’s parents.

Reports were then filed to his superior, the late Bishop Francis McKiernan of Kilmore.

“I deeply regret that those with the authority and responsibility to deal appropriately with Brendan Smyth failed to do so, with tragic and painful consequences for those children he so cruelly abused,” the Cardinal said.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who last year launched an unprecedented attack on the Church in the wake of a fifth damning inquiry into clerical abuse and agreed to close the Irish embassy in the Vatican, said the Cardinal should reflect on the new revelations.

Cardinal Brady has the backing of the Vatican’s chief investigator, Monsignor Charles J Scicluna, who said there is no reason for him to resign. Armagh Auxiliary Bishop Gerard Clifford also offered his support.

Three years ago, when explosive allegations about Cardinal Brady’s role in the canonical inquiry into Smyth emerged, he said he would resign if he found his actions or failings had led to another child being abused.

He attempted to qualify that today by saying he was referring specifically to responsibilities he had as a bishop.

“In 1975, I was not a bishop. I was not in that role,” he added.

Some children were abused by Smyth for years after the internal Church inquiry.

It was not until 1994 that Smyth was convicted in a Belfast court of 17 counts of sexual abuse. Three years later in Dublin, he pleaded guilty to another 74 counts of child sexual abuse. He died in prison in 1997.

Brendan Boland, who had been abused during the 1970s from the age of 12, gave the secret inquiry a list of other children he believed were victims – a boy and girl from Belfast and from Cavan, and another boy.

He was told by investigating priests to swear an oath of confidentiality during the Church inquiry which Cardinal Brady now insists was to protect him and ensure Smyth could not manipulate evidence.

The Cardinal accused the BBC of airing a misleading documentary which incorrectly reported his role in the inquiry and his response to the claims.

Late last year Cardinal Brady offered to apologise in person to Mr Boland following an undisclosed out-of-court settlement.

The Vatican press office declined to comment.

The BBC responded to the Cardinal’s claims, saying: “We stand by the programme, which accurately and impartially reports its findings.

“It has been made in accordance with BBC editorial guidelines and fairly represents the position of the Church.”

John Kelly, of the Irish Survivors of Child Abuse, said the Cardinal has failed, like most of the senior hierarchy, to grasp moral leadership.

“He instead reverted to the omerta position of his predecessors, which makes his current position untenable,” Mr Kelly said.

St Colman's Cathedral in the Diocese of Cloyne, Cobh. (Pic: Mark Condren/PA)

The Pope’s ambassador to Ireland has been ordered to get answers from the Vatican on damning revelations that it allowed priests to ignore the law.

Papal Nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza was told to take a message to the Holy See that the Irish Government believes its conduct in clerical child abuse inquiries has been disgraceful and unacceptable.

The Catholic hierarchy in Rome stand accused of effectively briefing clergy in a 1997 letter to allow them to defy guidelines and not report paedophiles in their ranks.

Pressure is also intensifying on disgraced former bishop John Magee — found to have misled authorities over abuse allegations in the Diocese of Cloyne in Co Cork as recently as 2008 — to come out of hiding.

He resigned in 2010 but two bishops have led calls for him to publicly answer for his failures.

Amid the increasingly damaging fall-out from a report in the Cloyne Diocese, Taoiseach Enda Kenny warned that canon law and church policy would never again defend priests for failing to report abuse allegations.

“The law of the land should not be stopped by crozier, or by collar,” Mr Kenny said.

Eamon Gilmore, Tánaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister, said he has warned the Archbishop about a new law of five years’ jail for anyone who does not alert authorities about crimes against a child.

“I told him that the Government considered it unacceptable that the Vatican intervention may have led priests to believe that they could in conscience evade their responsibilities under Irish laws,” the Tanaiste said.

“I told him that I believed that a response is required and I look forward to receiving it.”

The Archbishop, who was summoned to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin for a second time in two years in the wake of a damning report on clerical abuse, was given a copy of the Cloyne report to pass on to the Vatican.

He refused to answer questions after the meeting but said he was distressed by the findings, which go to heart of the Church.

“Naturally I`m very distressed myself at the failures in ensuring the protection of children within the Church, despite all the good work that has been done,” he said in a brief statement outside Iveagh House.

“I wish to stress however, the total commitment of the Holy See for its part in taking all the necessary measures to ensure the protection.”

Former bishop Magee is no longer living in Cloyne and has told a spokesman he does not want to add to a statement issued yesterday where he apologised and said he accepted the findings of the report.

The Vatican’s most senior spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi declined to answer questions on the scandal – the fourth major clerical abuse inquiry in Ireland to rock the Church.

The report on Cloyne covers the 13 years up to 2009 and contains devastating criticisms which go right to the top of the Catholic Church. It is the second expose by Judge Yvonne Murphy. It accused the Holy See of an “entirely unhelpful” reaction to inquiries.

The Government has branded the 1997 letter, which came a year after Irish bishops set down reporting guidelines to enhance child protection, unfortunate and unacceptable.

The correspondence stated that the bishops policy was “merely a discussion document” and that the Vatican had serious moral and canon reservations about mandatory reporting of clerical abuse.

The Taoiseach said: “I think this is absolutely disgraceful that the Vatican took the view that it did in respect of something that’s as sensitive and as personal with such long-lasting difficulties for persons involved.”

The report singled out Bishop Magee, a personal secretary to three popes, for misleading inquiries into the mishandling of abuse claims.

It found Rome effectively gave him carte blanche to ignore guidelines and offer “comfort and support” to senior clerics such as his second-in-command, Monsignor Denis O’Callaghan, who defied official policy on paedophile priests and did not believe they should be reported to authorities.

The Taoiseach added: “In situations where these appalling activities took place let them be reported and let the law of the land apply.

“So from that perspective, irrespective of the location or circumstance of the persons involved, this is not about Ireland of long ago, it’s about the Ireland of contemporary times and it’s now got to be dealt with.”

Two Socialist Party TDs called for Archbishop Leanza to be expelled from Ireland over the scandal. It is understood such a dramatic move is not being considered by the Government.

Fine Gael TD Charlie Flanagan also said Archbishop Leanza should be expelled.

“The position of the Papal Nuncio is untenable,” he said.

Mr Flanagan said there were no circumstances in which canon law could take precedence over civil or criminal law.

“As an ambassador of the Vatican state, he should leave the jurisdiction,” he added.