Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In the context of the recent CervicalCheck scandal and litigation, the Government has been at pains to point out that it does not wish to take an adversarial approach to victims of State institutions. However, I recently met the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Richard Bruton, to discuss the cases of Mr. John Allen and a number of other men from Limerick who had been pursuing the Government for access to the redress scheme in the context of child abuse in primary schools.

These are individuals about whom there is no issue in terms of their having been abused in primary schools. The paedophiles concerned have been convicted by the criminal justice system and are in prison. Louise O'Keeffe had to go the whole way to the European Court of Human Rights to get justice in her case, and I hasten to add, previous Governments of which I was a member were wrong in that respect. We are now on the cusp of John Allen and others having to go back again to the European Court of Human Rights to get access to the redress scheme. They have been to the High Court and the Supreme Court and they have been harassed the whole way by the State and threatened with costs. In the midst of all the justifiable angst all week, meanwhile, parallel to all of that, the UCC legal department and others are assisting these victims of abuse because of a very limited interpretation-----

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