In 1994 as St Patrick's College, Maynooth approached its bicentenary due to be held the following year, Mgr Ledwith resigned as president, six months before his term of office was to end.
[5] Ledwith, they noted, had denied this strenuously but the college authorities had nevertheless commenced an investigation, and his Bishop, Dr Brendan Comiskey, had at the time informed both the Gardaí and the relevant Health Board.
This process of investigation had commenced in or around 1995 but Ledwith, in the interim, came to a private legal settlement with the claimant which admitted no liability and included a confidentiality clause.
The then Bishop of Galway, Dr Eamon Casey, conducted a private investigation, and as no seminarian came forward to make a complaint, the matter was dropped.
[8] The bishop's report, whilst critical, was found wanting in key respects and the matter was eventually debated in the Irish Senate in November 2005.
In connection with the accusation of sexual abuse against a minor; the inquiry was hampered by the confidentiality clause agreed between Ledwith and the complainant, and the Ferns Report was unable to make any specific finding.
This resulted in the diocesan investigation ceasing as the complaint was discovered to be outside the Canonical Statute of Limitations, and Bishop Comiskey declined to pursue the matter by other means at his disposal.
There he informed the Sub-Committee that he felt that the procedure adopted was fundamentally flawed and unfair from the perspective of civil and canon law and he submitted his resignation as president of Maynooth.
He also asserted to the inquiry that Dr McGinnity had been dismissed from his post not because of this incident, but rather due to grave concerns about indiscipline within the college during his time as senior dean.
The commission also noted that Ledwith had co-operated fully with the inquiry and had given direct oral evidence, where he had consistently asserted his innocence of all charges, though he declined to discuss any issues subject to a confidentiality clause.
The sudden resignation of Micheál Ledwith in 1994 caused controversy in Ireland,[11] and led to considerable criticism of the way the matter was handled by the Irish Hierarchy.
[13] In 2002 Patsy McGarry, religious affairs correspondent of the Irish Times, reported that Ledwith was lecturing with a New Age cult in the United States,[14] and in 2005 he was laicised.