REVELATIONS of physical and mental abuse by staff in a care home for people with severe learning disabilities was the latest in a catalogue of misuses of power that the Churches in Ireland have failed to address, the Dean of Leighlin, the Very Revd Tom Gordon, said on Sunday.

After TV broadcasts of the abuse at Áras Attracta, a care home in Co. Mayo, which had been filmed using a hidden camera, Dean Gordon said: "The constantly recurring horrors in our political life, in our institutions of care, and in our Churches are not only the corrupt acts of individual people; they emerge from a deeper and darker sickness: namely, the historic inability of the Irish psyche to negotiate power per se."

The Irish Health Service Executive has confirmed that a number of staff members at the home have been suspended, pending an inquiry into the abuse.