State opposes costs bid by lawyers for ‘hooded men’

The State is opposing an application by lawyers for the hooded men for their legal costs over a case they brought to the High Court in a bid to compel the Government to seek a revision from the European Court of Human Rights of its findings over their internment in the 1970s.

Earlier this month the Government said it would ask the ECHR to revise its controversial 1978 judgment over the alleged use of torture techniques by the British army in Northern Ireland on the men who were hooded and subjected to sensory deprivation practices.

The men, known as the hooded men, wanted the Government to raise the matter after information emerged in an RTÉ programme entitled The Torture Files.