The State has today made a significant concession in the ongoing campaign by survivors of historical abuse in schools to access redress, by settling 10 High Court actions challenging the State’s refusal to admit them to its most recent redress scheme. In April, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (‘the Commission’) was granted leave to exercise its amicus curiae (‘friend of the court’) function in the case of KW v the Minister for Education, the Government of Ireland, Ireland and the Attorney General. This case will not now go ahead as the matter has been settled. KW was a lead case, with 9 other cases dealing with the same issue pending before the High Court. The issue in dispute was the State’s refusal to admit survivors of historical abuse in schools to its Revised Ex Gratia Redress Scheme (the ‘Scheme’), which was rolled out on 21 July 2021 and ran for two years. The Commission welcomes the State’s agreement to now provide KW and 9 others with the ex gratia payment of €84,000 each following a lengthy legal battle. However, the Commission remains deeply concerned that many other survivors of historic child abuse in primary and post primary schools, dating from before 1991 and 1992, have not had access to redress due to the unfair and discriminatory barriers being put in place as part of the State’s initial Ex Gratia Scheme in 2015 and the Revised Ex Gratia Scheme in 2021, which closed in July 2023. Currently no redress scheme is in place. The Commission calls on the Government to immediately establish a new redress scheme, to provide an effective remedy to survivors of historic child abuse in primary and post primary schools before 1991 and 1992. It is important that any new scheme does not repeat the mistakes of the previous schemes by imposing arbitrary and discriminatory pre-conditions. The Commission believes that the concessions made today by the State, in settling KW and the other 9 cases, could have broader implications for survivors of historic sexual abuse in schools who currently have no access to redress. The Commission will seek to follow up with Government and the Department of Education to discuss the implications of these settlements. IHREC Commissioner Noeline Blackwell said:
“Survivors of historic child sexual abuse in schools in Ireland face significant and long standing barriers in accessing redress despite Louise O’Keeffe’s ground breaking judgment in Strasbourg over a decade ago. These are people in Ireland who experienced sexual abuse over 30 years ago in schools as children, and have never had access to justice. Today’s developments in the High Court are an important breakthrough. These settlements today are a significant concession by the State. Yet, more needs to be done. We are again calling on the Government to introduce a comprehensive, fair and non-discriminatory redress scheme that respects the European Court’s’s ruling in Louise O’Keeffe’s case, which does not include unreasonable or arbitrary barriers in accessing redress, and ultimately, that ensure survivors access the justice due to them by the State”.
ENDS/ For further information, please contact: Sarah Clarkin, IHREC Communications Manager, 01 852 9641 / 087 468 7760 sarah.clarkin@ihrec.ie Follow us on twitter @_IHREC
Editor’s Note
Ten years ago, Louise O’Keeffe won her case against Ireland before the European Court of Human Rights (the “ECtHR”). The Strasbourg Court found that (prior to the introduction of child protection guidelines in 1991 and 1992) the State had violated the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to protect children in Irish schools and that there had been a further violation of the Convention on account of the lack of an effective remedy for abuse survivors to seek redress from the State. In 2009 the Supreme Court held, in the case of O’Keeffe v. Hickey, that school patrons/managers were the employer of teachers in national schools and that the State was not vicariously liable for historical child sexual abuse suffered in schools. This remains the law in Ireland today. KW’s case before the High Court focused on the requirement under the Scheme for survivors to have, on or before 1 July 2021 (i.e. 3 weeks before the publication of the Scheme), issued legal proceedings against the State seeking damages for sexual abuse in day schools, even though it was clear that such cases were bound to fail, given the Supreme Court’s judgment in 2009. Over the past ten years the Commission has continuously expressed concerns about the State’s failure to properly implement the ECtHR’s judgment in Louise O’Keeffe’s case, by failing to introduce a fair and non-discriminatory redress scheme that reflected the Strasbourg Court’s judgment. Over this time, the Commission has engaged directly with the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers (which supervises States’ enforcement of judgments), most recently in May 2024, with Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O’Neill, the State appointed Independent Assessor (who had found that the State’s original redress scheme did not reflect survivors’ rights under the ECtHR judgment), with the UN Human Rights Council and with Oireachtas members in relation to the human rights requirements for survivors to be able to access redress. A fortnight ago, the Commission, represented by Commissioner Noeline Blackwell, presented a briefing at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, consisting of Permanent Representations of the different member states. The meeting also heard from Louise O’Keeffe, the first time that she was back in Strasbourg since her successful case ten years ago. Commissioner Noeline Blackwell briefed delegates on the State’s decade-long failure to implement the O’Keeffe judgment. She advocated again for the Committee of Ministers to increase its supervision of the implementation of the judgment (to what is known as the ‘enhanced’ supervision procedure)*. * Enhanced supervision is intended to allow the Committee of Ministers to closely follow progress of the execution of a case, and to facilitate exchanges with the national authorities supporting execution.
Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission
The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission is an independent public body, appointed by the President and directly accountable to the Oireachtas. The Commission has a statutory remit set out under the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act (2014) to protect and promote human rights and equality in Ireland, and build a culture of respect for human rights, equality and intercultural understanding in the State. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission is Ireland’s national human rights institution and is recognised as such by the United Nations. The Commission is also Ireland’s national equality body for the purpose of a range of EU anti-discrimination measures. The Commission’s predecessor, the Irish Human Rights Commission, intervened as a third party in the O’Keeffe v Ireland case in Strasbourg and submitted written observations to the ECtHR in 2011. Those submissions were referred to in the Court’s judgment, which addressed the failure by the State to protect Ms O’Keeffe from sexual abuse in a national school in 1973 and to put in place a system of adequate and effective remedies for survivors of that abuse.