Abuse redress scheme claims

The Child Law Clinic of University College Cork has sent submissions to the European committee of ministers which could lead to a broadening of the day-school abuse redress scheme which is currently inaccessible to many alleged abuse victims.

Submissions made to Strasbourg by the Child Law Clinic and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission question the Government’s narrow interpretation of the landmark European judgment which found the State was negligent in failing to protect Louise O’Keeffe from abuse in national school.

The liability of the Department of Education in day-school abuse cases was at the core of a High Court case last month where three men in their 50s and 60s, claiming sexual abuse during the 1960s, were told they cannot sue the State for damages.