The Pope finally means business on child abuse in Ireland.

That is the only possible response to the names released yesterday to effectively act as overseers of the Irish church and investigate every possible angle of the sex abuse scandals that rocked the Irish faithful .

Men like Sean O'Malley of Boston, Cormac Murphy formerly of Westminster and current church heads in Boston, Toronto and Ottawa are very serious figures in the church.

Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, will investigate the Irish seminaries as well as the broader issue of priestly formation. Two nuns were appointed to investigate religious institutes for women.

What is clear is that the Vatican now, at last, fully understands that they can no longer allow even the slightest perception that they are not dealing with the pedophile crisis in as thorough a way as possible.

Garry O’Sullivan, the editor of The Irish Catholic, Ireland’s leading Catholic weekly newspaper, stated the overseers were more significant than he expected.

“This shows Rome means business,” he said. “The fact that there are two cardinals and three archbishops is a sign of intent. It is a high-powered group and the scope appears to have widened.” he told The New York Times.

Rome means business but has it all come too late?

The Irish church leadership with the honorable exception of current Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin have disgraced themselves with their cover up and then lack of action on this issue when it was finally exposed.

The faithful in Ireland have been deserting in droves and there is talk of even wider inquiries covering every diocese in Ireland to finally root out all the pedophile priests.

At least the bleeding may now stop with the appointment of the eminent men from the leading church dioceses in North America and Britain.

Not coincidentally most are of Irish origin. They will need all the luck of the Irish to put the church there back together again.