Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Tá mé buíoch go bhfuil an deis seo agam labhairt ar an topaic fíorthábhachtach seo um thráthnóna.

I want to discuss the State’s approach to the Louise O'Keeffe ruling and in particular, its interpretation of that ruling and the impact for survivors of sex abuse at State schools. As we know, Louise O'Keeffe was involved in a 20 year legal battle against the State for justice. It was only when she went all the way to the European Court of Human Rights that she received justice and an acknowledgement of the horrific abuse inflicted on her as a school child and of the failure of the State to protect her from that abuse.

Unfortunately, for hundreds of other school child sex abuse survivors, their day of justice never came and the State has done everything in its power to ensure that, for the majority, it never will. Due to the very narrow interpretation of the ruling of the European Court by the State, many survivors have been effectively locked out of the ex gratiascheme. In particular, the State’s interpretation that a prior complaint of sex abuse must have been made in order to fulfil the terms of the scheme has meant that a lot of survivors have been deprived of a remedy for the failure of the State to protect them. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, and the Child Law Clinic of University College Cork, which was heavily involved in the original case, have made numerous submissions to the Council of Europe on this point and have clearly stated that this interpretation is not in line with the O'Keeffe ruling. In its latest communication on this issue, the IHREC also pointed out that the most recent unsuccessful claims brought to the High Court were found to be statute barred and no finding was made that the facts of the cases were distinguishable from the facts in O'Keeffe case.

I am aware of situations where survivors of abuse were written to by the State and told that if they did not drop their cases, they would face thousands of euro in costs. That is not right. As we know, after the initial unsuccessful Supreme Court case by Louise O'Keeffe, 210 plaintiffs dropped their cases. They felt forced to do so and they are now statute barred from bringing their cases to court and are not eligible under the payment scheme. Out of 350 cases, just six have been settled under the scheme and a relatively small number have been processed. Will the Minister for Education and Skills commit to ensuring that survivors have access to the justice they deserve by implementing the O'Keeffe ruling in full? I ask him to widen the terms of the scheme to ensure that those who dropped their cases as a result of letters sent to them by the State containing threats of legal costs can access the scheme.

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