Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 27 June 2018
148. Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Minister for Education and Skills the number of victims of sex abuse by those that have been convicted of same that have not had access to the redress scheme due to not having made a prior complaint; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28280/18]
View answerThe Deputy may be referring to the ex-gratia scheme established in the aftermath of the ECHR judgment in the Louise O’Keeffe case. Since this Judgement, the State Claims Agency (SCA) which is mandated to act on behalf of the State in cases of historic child abuse, has been notified of many claims. These are either (a) claims which are entirely newly instituted or (b) are pre-existing claims against school authorities and in which claimants are now more recently seeking to join the State as a respondent. The number of such claims is 170. Information on whether the individual claims to be a victim of a convicted abuser is privileged.
The SCA has engaged and will continue to engage with claimants’ solicitors to clarify the circumstances of new claimants’ claims and to make settlement offers where the claims come within the terms of the ECtHR Judgement and are not statute barred.
The position of historical cases which were discontinued has, as you may know, been reviewed. In July 2015, the Government agreed to respond to those persons who had instituted legal proceedings in relation to school child sexual abuse which were subsequently discontinued by offering ex gratia payments to those persons who come within the terms of the ECHR judgment and whose claims were not statute barred at the time of their discontinuance.
Persons who believe that their cases come within the criteria can contact the SCA and provide supporting evidence. The SCA has received 49 applications of which 44 applications have been declined. All of the applications that were declined were advised that they could apply to Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill, the independent assessor I appointed in November 2017, for an independent assessment of their application. 21 people have applied for this assessment.
Mr Justice O’Neill has looked for a submission on: ‘whether the imposition of the condition which required that there had to be evidence of a prior complaint of child sexual abuse on the part of the employee in question to the school authority (or a school authority in which the employee has previously worked), to establish eligibility for a payment under the ex gratia scheme, is consistent with and a correct implementation of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Louise O’Keeffe v. Ireland’
The submission forwarded to Mr Justice O’Neill on 27th April was prepared with the advice and assistance of the Attorney General and Senior Counsel and is now published on the Department's website.
