Ireland dragging its heels on paying school child sex abuse survivors compensation owed to them

 

Ireland could owe historical sexual abuse survivors

€84,000 each in redress under legal precedent 

set in landmark case

Ellen Coyne, The Irish Independent

Thu 5 Sep 2024 at 18:30

The State would owe most survivors of historical sexual abuse in schools €84,000 each in redress, under a legal precedent set in a landmark case.

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission has put pressure on the Government to quickly provide redress to all survivors who are entitled to such a payment under the O’Keefe judgement.

Ten years ago, Louise O’Keefe successfully took Ireland to the European Court of Human Rights for failing to protect her from the abuse she suffered at a primary school in the 1970s in West Cork.

The State was found to have had an obligation to protect children from abuse, and the case noted that there was no appropriate child protection framework in Irish primary schools until 1991, and secondary schools until 1992. Ms O’Keeffe was awarded €84,000 in compensation from the state.

The IHREC says that it has “been clear for the past decade that the State has had a legal responsibility to make redress to abuse survivors for its own failure to protect children in schools by failing to put child protection measures in place until the early 1990s”.

Michael O’Neill, head of legal at the IHREC, told the Irish Independent that it would raise questions if child sexual abuse survivors who had been assaulted and attacked in Irish schools before 1992 were not also awarded redress of €84,000 each from the State.

“It’s not clear to me how you would distinguish between different people on redress. The state has decided to put systems in place already, ex-gratia schemes already at €84,000. The immediate question that I suspect individual survivors or their legal representatives would be asking is, why has it changed? That’s something we have to watch and wait and see,” Mr O’Neill said.

In 2014, Ms O’Keefe revived a state apology in the wake of her successful court case.

The state also opened an ex-gratia payment scheme for victims of sexual abuse in day schools. It was for those who those who had instituted legal proceedings against the State in respect of their abuse in a day school and subsequently discontinued those proceedings following the rulings against O’Keeffe in the High Court and the Supreme Court, and prior to the judgement of the ECHR in the Louise O’Keeffe case.

But the scheme was paused in 2019, after a retired High Court judge carried out a review which found that aspects of the scheme had been fundamentally unfair.

The scheme, which entitles around 350 victims payments of up to €84,000 each, was reopened in 2021 by education minister Norma Foley.

The IHREC has argued that “the State has persistently failed to put in place a fair and adequate redress scheme as it is required to do by law.”

“This failure by the State has forced individual survivors to endure further delays, retraumatisation and the risk of significant financial exposure, by having to commence High Court proceedings to vindicate their rights.

"Recently, in June 2024, the State settled 10 such cases as the matter was finally about to go to hearing, paying each survivor the redress payment of €84,000 that they are entitled to,” it said in a statement.