Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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361. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the amount paid by the State in fees to legal professionals for the purposes of defending the O’Keeffe case and other cases of day school sex abuse litigation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54806/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The State Claims Agency are mandated to manage these cases on behalf of the State. The legal fees paid in respect of these cases since the beginning of 2011 to end of 2017 are set out as follows.

Table 1: Claims created 2011 – 2017

Table 1 outlines day school claims created under the Minister for Education and Skills between 2011 and 2017 inclusive.

Table 2: Payments made 2011 – 2017

Table 2 outlines the legal fee payments made under the Minister for Education and the number of claims relating to these payments from 2011 – 2017 inclusive.

**The higher figures in 2016 and 2017 in respect of the agency legal costs reflect payments to the agency’s solicitors and counsel in respect of advices concerning the implications of the ECtHR judgement in Louise O’Keefe v Ireland

***The figures for each year are rounded to the nearest euro. However, the Grand Total in each case is the actual total of all the annual rounded figures.

****As well as the payments total of €1,243,309, a further amount of €15,473.40 was paid in 2015 in respect of cost of counsel employed to carry out a review of closed Day school claims.