Woman taking case over state ‘bias’

An Irishwoman is going to the European Court of Human Rights over a refusal by the Irish courts to award her a lump sum payment for accommodation because her child was born outside marriage.

The 34-year-old Dublin woman, who claims discrimination by the state, has been engaged in legal proceedings since 2004 to obtain lump sums for accommodation and maintenance, as well as regular maintenance payments from her former partner, who is her child’s father.

In 2009, the High Court nullified an earlier court order which awarded her a €500,000 lump sum to buy accommodation for herself and her son on the basis that it had no jurisdiction to make such an award in relation to non-marital children. It also refused the claim for a lump sum for maintenance because she had been granted an order to receive monthly maintenance payments of €1,200.

The woman claims she has been discriminated against under the European Convention on Human Rights because the Guardianship of Infants Act 1964 was only designed to allow maintenance orders for children born within marriage. She has pointed out that such a payment is not available to her under the Family Law Act 1995.

She has also complained that her human rights have been breached as a result of the length of the proceedings, which took place between July 2004 and February 2009.

In a separate case, a former member of the Defence Forces is taking an action against the state before the European court.

Raymond Reilly, aged 45, claims he was sexually abused by a superior officer between 1989 and 1995 while serving as a private.

Mr Reilly claims the Defence Forces were aware of the officer’s tendency to interfere with junior soldiers and that he was subjected to protracted ridicule as the officer’s “bum boy”.

He never reported the abuse because he had been threatened by his abuser and because of his belief that the culture within the Defence Forces meant complaints against a senior officer typically went nowhere.

The alleged abuser retired in 1999. Interviewed by gardaí in 2000, the former officer denied sexually assaulting both Mr Reilly and another solider, but admitted the offence against a third.

The former officer was given a two-year suspended jail sentence in April 2003 after pleading guilty to sexual assault of the third soldier. A jury failed to reach a verdict in a separate prosecution against the man for similar offences against Mr Reilly in 2003.

Both the High Court and Supreme Court rejected Mr Reilly’s subsequent civil action that the state was vicariously liable for the abuse he suffered.