Department has no legal responsibility

THE Department of Education’s lack of legal responsibility for the reprehensible actions of a minority of teachers against children was clarified by the highest court in the land last December.

More than 140 cases of people abused as children by their teachers were on the department’s files, awaiting the finalisation of the case of Louise O’Keeffe, who was abused by the principal of her Co Cork primary school in the 1970s.

The Supreme Court found in a majority ruling that the department did not have any liability for the abuse, as her legal team had claimed, although it did deny the State its claim for costs this month because the earlier judgment clarified a significant point of law.