Abuse victims vow legal fight if State fails to solve Laffoy debacle

ABUSE victims are prepared to haul the Government through the courts for years to come if a swift solution to the Laffoy Commission debacle is not found.

Solicitors acting for many of the victims will meet later this week to discuss the crisis and are demanding an urgent meeting with the Attorney General and Taoiseach’s Department to seek clarification about the consequences for their clients.

James MacGuill, spokesman for an ad hoc group of firms representing 1,200 victims, said all the legal teams had been told so far was to hold off doing any more commission work, which was totally unsatisfactory from their clients’ point of view.

“Bear in mind that the commission was established as an alternative to litigation in the courts. That alternative still exists. There is no hiding place for the Department of Education. If it is not prepared to stand by its commitments, we will simply do what every citizen is entitled to do,” he said.

“The Government should not underestimate the courage of the survivors who have campaigned for decades to expose the truth. They are not going to be deflected by a Government sleight of hand.”

One of the commission’s strongest supporters, Christine Buckley of the Aislinn Survivors Group, also conceded there may now be no alternative to going through the courts despite her reluctance to put ageing and ailing victims through the ordeal.

Many of their claims would require the lifting of the statute of limitations for victims of physical abuse as happened for victims of sexual abuse but Ms Buckley said she was prepared to go to Europe to force the Government to change the law.

The prospect of protracted legal battles loomed after the leaking of Ms Justice Mary Laffoy’s resignation letter in which she said it was both practically and legally impossible for her to continue to chair the commission if the Government was intent on changing its mandate and functions and while the nature of those changes was kept from her.

In a damning chronology of the obstacles placed before the commission, Ms Justice Laffoy said delays by the Government in enacting legislation and its failure to respond to her requests for resources and suggestions for improvements had left her “powerless”.

She complained of “unfairness and injustice” to victims and said she feared her own credibility would be “seriously undermined” if she did not protest now by tendering her resignation. She wrote: “It retrospect, it appears to me that since its establishment, the commission has never been properly enabled by the Government to fulfil satisfactorily the functions conferred on it by the Oireachtas.”

The leaking of the letter will put Education Minister Noel Dempsey under even more intense pressure as Cabinet meets tomorrow amid Opposition demands for a recall of the Dáil and calls from victims’ groups for the minister’s resignation.

A Department of Education spokesperson said a response to Ms Justice Laffoy’s letter would be made “in due course”. A Government spokesperson said any request by victims’ solicitors for a meeting would be considered and added: “This is not a simple issue. The agenda has to be recourse for the victims.”