Less than a third of fund for school sex abuse victims paid out
Human rights experts remain critical of the new scheme for continuing to exclude 'deserving applicants'. File Picture: iStock
Ahead of its closure later this month, less than a third of the Government's €31m scheme for victims of sexual abuse in schools has been paid to survivors.
Furthermore, over a quarter (43) of the 165 applications to the Government’s revised ex gratia scheme, which is due to close on July 20, have been rejected.
Both the Department of Education and the State Claims Agency (SCA) declined to say on what grounds these applications were rejected, prompting calls to extend the deadline to apply and for the scheme’s "restrictive" entry criteria to be reconsidered.
When it reopened a revised scheme in 2021, the Department of Education estimated it would pay out €31m to approximately 350 individuals in order to meet its obligations arising from a landmark European Court of Human Rights ruling.
However, €9.82m has been paid out to date in awards — just under a third of the department’s original estimation.
The State’s previous ex gratia scheme for survivors of abuse in national schools was set up in 2014 after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the State failed to protect Cork woman Louise O’Keeffe. She was abused at her primary school in the 1970s.
In 2019, it emerged that survivors had been paid nothing through the original scheme as its entry criteria were too restrictive.
The most criticised entry clause was removed as part of the revised scheme. However, human rights experts remain critical of the new scheme for continuing to exclude “deserving applicants". It requires survivors to have initiated legal proceedings against the State by July 2021.
In accordance with the O’Keeffe ruling, anyone abused in an Irish school prior to the introduction of child safeguarding rules in the early 1990s was failed by the State, according to Conor O’Mahony, professor at the School of Law at University College Cork.
This will include most of those who may come forward following the revelations last year of abuse at Blackrock College, and anyone who subsequently came forward as a result.
“The deadline should be extended to afford these people the opportunity to apply,” he said.
However, extending the deadline alone will not suffice, he added.
“Few, if any, of these people will have sued the State before July 2021, and their applications would accordingly be rejected.
"It serves only to exclude deserving applicants, including other victims of Leo Hickey, who abused Louise O'Keeffe. It should be dropped without further delay, and applications already refused on this ground should be reconsidered.”
The revised scheme established by the Government has also been criticised by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), as it “does not provide equal access to redress for all victims of historic sexual abuse in day schools".
It is “unlawful” to discriminate between victims of violations of the European Convention of Human Rights in accessing the Scheme, a spokeswoman for the IHREC said.
A spokesman for the SCA said it does not make the payments in respect of the scheme and any questions on budget and spending should be directed to the Department of Education.
A spokesman for the Department of Education said many efforts have been made to bring the revised scheme to the attention of potentially eligible applicants.
"The SCA administers the scheme," the spokesman stated.
"Therefore the Department of Education is not in a position to provide further detail as to why individual applications to the scheme may have been refused."
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