Work on the Four Courts building, Dublin. Image: Leah Farrell Work on the Four Courts building, Dublin. Image: Leah Farrell APPLICANTS TO THE State’s redress scheme for victims of child sexual abuse that occurred in schools have expressed concern about whether their legal fees will be paid.
As part of that ruling, the government agreed that it would respond to those who had taken legal action in relation to day school child sexual abuse and who had discontinued those proceedings in the wake of judgments of the High and Supreme Courts, but before the subsequent ECtHR judgment in the Louise O’Keeffe case .
The judge added that had a system to report abuse “been in place in the years before 1992 when all of the historic child sexual abuse occurred in national schools… the prevailing culture of impunity which permitted these crimes to occur, could not have existed or survived”. In a statement on the Department of Education’s website, it states that ”a contribution to the applicant’s legal expenses may also be offered”, as a footnote to that figure of €84,000.