Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputies recognised, these legal measures were in place long before I came to this job. The position as to when the State has a liability is clear. The Oireachtas decided that the State would have a liability when it was acting in place of the parents. That is how the residential institutions incurred State liability - the State had removed young people from their parents, set itself up to regulate the institutions where they were to be cared for, and failed in its duty.

The situation with a day school is different, in that those schools were managed and run under school patrons and the State did not go to court, as it were, to place people in those institutions. I understand that the court found liability on the part of the State in the Louise O'Keeffe case because the abuser had been identified and was known to the State and, as such, the State should have taken greater action to protect the child. That is where the State's failing occurred. This is the basis on which the Government's legal advice has interpreted the European court ruling. The State must have known that an abuser was in place and did not take the steps required of it to protect children. Unfortunately, this is the basis on which the State can be held liable. As the reply indicated, others may also be liable, but not the State in other circumstances.

The role of the assessor is to provide an independent process to determine whether individual cases fall within the terms of the agreement. The State Claims Agency has arranged a process under which there would be such an independent assessor.

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