IRELAND
Irish Times
Colm Keena
Louise O’Keeffe’s long and courageous battle to have the State held liable for the abuse she suffered at her primary school in Dunderrow, Co Cork, was deemed at the time to have likely consequences for the finances of the State.
This was because there were other alleged victims waiting to see if the European Court of Human Rights would find against the rulings of the Irish courts in relation to State responsibility for sex abuse in schools run by boards of management and not owned by the State. Reports said some 200 people might be affected.
When O’Keeffe lost in the Supreme Court in 2008, the State Claims Agency wrote to some of these people to say they should drop their cases or the State would pursue them for costs. Quite a few withdrew their claims against that background.
Twelve months after the January 2014 O’Keeffe ruling, the State said it would make out of court settlements with extant claims that fell within the terms of the ruling, and that were not statute barred. Seven months later it said it would make out of court settlements with claimants who had discontinued their cases where the cases came within the terms of the Strasbourg court’s ruling and were not statute barred at the time of discontinuence.
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