Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has tried to pre-empt what I was going to say, which is fair enough, because as I said to him when we met privately, there is a narrow interpretation of the Louise O'Keeffe case. The Louise O'Keeffe case is about the State's failures in general in the education system with regard to inspection, supervision and child protection. There was a prior complaint in that particular case. I do not think it is reasonable in any way to say that for everybody else there must be a prior complaint exactly as it was in the Louise O'Keeffe case. It is completely unreasonable. There are people there who have been abused by people who have been subsequently convicted. There is no doubt about these people's cases. These are not the floodgates opening. These are people who have had abusers convicted and cannot get redress from the State. What is happening to these people is that they are being forced through the courts by the Department - I would say in a wholly cruel way - where eventually, if they have the resources, willpower and physical and mental ability, some will end up in the European Court of Human Rights again, and the State will lose again in my view. In my view, a clear reading of that judgment puts a much wider obligation on the State. Nobody is looking for floodgates to open or to create a bananza for anybody, but merely to get justice for those people who were abused in schools and let down by failures of the State and Irish Government.

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