Human rights watchdog blasts State's failings on redress for child abuse victims

In 2014, Cork woman Louise O’Keeffe won a landmark ruling at the European Court of Human Rights following a 15-year legal battle through the Irish courts as she sought to establish the State’s vicarious liability for her personal injuries as a result of the abuse she suffered in her national school in the 1970s. File picture: Dan Linehan

Ireland's human rights watchdog has told the Council of Europe that Ireland is failing survivors of sexual abuse in schools yet again by its "partial and reluctant" attempts at redress and its lack of clarity over a replacement scheme.

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) made its comments in a submission to the council on the eve of the second anniversary of the closure, for review, of the redress scheme for those abused in schools prior to 1992.