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

I challenge the Minister on this. The High Court and Supreme Court have never stated that the previous practice in the Department was what should happen. Victims were bullied out of the High Court and Supreme Court with threats of costs a number of years ago. They were told that if they pursued their claims, costs would be awarded against them, which is what happened.

This issue needs to be dealt with urgently. If I was the Minister for Education and Skills, I would ask the Attorney General and his office, because the matter goes beyond the current Attorney General, how they got this so wrong when everybody, including the entire Opposition and outside academics, was saying what the position was. Let us be honest about this. A plain reading of the judgment in the Louise O'Keeffe case suggested that the Government was wrong. One did not have to be a legal expert to read the judgment by the court and realise that what the Government was doing was in conflict with it. I wonder how the Government got it so wrong. Its job now is to make this right by complying with the decision of the European Court of Human Rights before another case is taken in Strasbourg and another ruling issues against the Government on this important issue. It must finally give justice to some of these people, most of whom, at least most of those I have met, are men who continue to suffer. The similarities between some of the stories being told by people from different parts of the country are striking. The State's response has been inadequate.

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