A Co Galway man has been awarded €300,000 damages by the High Court for sexual abuse he suffered while at a national school in the county almost 40 years ago.
The man who is now 46, was abused over a three-year period by a former religious brother at the school.
In the High Court today, Mr Justice Richard Johnson awarded the man damages of €300,000 to include the loss of job opportunity and earnings.
The judge said that the man was continually sexually abused by the brother from 1969 until he left the school in 1972 in a classroom in the presence of other people and in a boiler room at the school. The judge said that the man was "extremely psychologically traumatised" by the abuse.
He said that the man was so traumatised that he was unable to talk to anyone about it until the late 1990s when he made a complaint to the Garda but was so traumatised that he was unable to give evidence in court.
The judge said it would be some considerable time before the man feels he can recover his self esteem.
The judge said that it was necessary to remember that at all times in the course of the case that the events happened 35 to 37 years ago when there was " a different atmosphere in the country".
"Any allegation of sexual abuse at all but particularly sexual abuse against the clergy or a member of the clergy were not taken seriously if they were entertained at all and it is only in recent years when the climate has changed that people are now more receptive," the judge said.