A leading Irish cardinal has reached a financial settlement with a victim of child abuse he swore to secrecy in 1975.

Cardinal Sean Brady has settled a case brought against him by Brendan Boland, one of two victims of infamous priest Fr Brendan Smyth.

The High Court in Dublin has been told that settlement has been reached in the case brought by Boland, now 50. The Cardinal settled a case with another victim Marie McCormack last year for a sum believed to be in the region of $350,000.

Both Boland and McCormack sued the Bishop, the diocese of Kilmore and Smyth’s Norbertine Order over their abuse cases in the 1970s.

Boland is expected to make a lengthy public statement on the  scandal on Wednesday.

Cardinal Brady was informed of the abuse by both the victims in 1975 but ordered them to keep it secret.

McCormack’s case against Brady, when she alleged he covered up her claims that she was abused by Smyth between 1970 and 1975, was settled without admission of liability and included apologies by the defendants.

According to the Irish Times, her High Court action highlighted that ‘Cardinal Brady had been involved in canonical investigations into abuse allegations against Smyth in 1975 which involved the two young people. He believed both of them at the time and swore them to secrecy at the end of his inquiry in Kilmore diocese’.

Now settled in Canada, McCormack said that 35 years after the abuse, her marriage and quality of life had been greatly affected by the trauma she suffered, which began when she was 14 and continued until she was 20.

According to the paper, the Cardinal claimed he had ‘done his duty’ by informing his then bishop of Smyth’s abuse.

He further said that he was not the ‘designated authority’ to report to the police and that Smyth’s Norbertine Order was responsible for the priest after removal of his priestly functions in Kilmore and other dioceses.