A decision by the Department of Education to warn people who were sexually abused as schoolchildren to withdraw their legal cases shows the department does still not fully accept its child protection responsibilities, according to One in Four director Maeve Lewis.
Her comments follow revelations that lawyers for the department and the Attorney General wrote to the legal representatives of childhood abuse sufferers calling on them to withdraw their litigation or face the prospect of legal costs.
Details of the letter were reported on RTÉ and follow rulings from the High Court that the Louise O’Keeffe European Court of Human Rights judgment while binding on the State did not apply in the High Court.
Ms O’Keeffe, who lost her case in the Supreme Court in 2009, received a European Court ruling that the State was liable for her abuse.
When she lost her case against the State almost 100 of 135 litigants dropped their own litigation after being warned by the State that they faced substantial costs if they lost.
Many resubmitted their cases following her Strasbourg victory but following the High Court rulings the department wrote to their legal representatives earlier this week stating that if they withdrew their case within 21 days the State would bear its own costs.
Litigants were warned the State reserved the right to seek to bring finality to the issue, which implied they would be pursued for costs.
One in Four provides support to people who suffered sexual abuse in childhood. Ms Lewis expressed her concern that the department had chosen to go down this road “when it is only a small number of cases” and it was frightening for people who had suffered so much already.
“The department has chosen to interpret very, very narrowly the Louise O’Keeffe judgment” in the High Court cases, she said. It did not fully accept responsibility and was insisting that unless a complaint had already been made it was not liable.
Other legal experts interpret the judgments very differently Ms Lewis said.
When Ms O'Keeffe was abused by school principal Leo Hickey, a complaint had previously been made against him but was not acted on. The department is now only accepting liability if a child is abused and a previous complaint against their abuser was not acted on.
Ms Lewis said the department “claims it has completely adequate child protection policies in place in Irish schools but that’s a bit of a joke”.
Outrage
In an interview on RTÉ's News at One Ms O'Keeffe expressed her outrage at the department's move.
She said she had hoped the Government and the department had learned their lesson. She accused the department of threatening and attempting to intimidate people who were aged just six and upwards when they were abused.
Ms O’Keeffe said it was the third time such letters had been sent. “If the department had done its jobs we would not have these cases coming through the courts, we would have been protected.”
She said the European Court judgment had shown that the State did not do its duty.
She said “it is outrageous that they would knock back people who have been abused”.
She said Minister for Education Richard Bruton had referred to being humane. "The humane thing to do as I have requested in the past is to offer settlements to the people who have cases pending and the people who dropped their cases under the threat of those letters."
Mr Bruton said people had been very damaged and the State had tried to deal with them in as humane a way as possible and to improve protections.
The Minister who was in Bray earlier on Friday said that following the judgments, the courts and the legal process had to be respected.
The letters were an opportunity to finalise matters so that people taking the cases would not be burdened by legal costs. Ex-gratia payments could be provided through the State Claims Agency. He said the courts had to decide where liability lay.
