Limerick child abuse survivors call on State to ensure ‘no more obstacles put in our way’

A GROUP of child abuse survivors in Limerick has called on the Government to ensure there are “no more obstacles put in our way”, following a judge’s landmark report that criticises the State’s ‘prior complaint’ clause in a redress scheme for victims. 

An ex-gratia redress scheme was established following a European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling that said the State bore some responsibility in the Louise O’Keefe case in 2015. 

As part of the scheme, claimants had to prove that there was a ‘prior complaint’ in respect of the alleged abuser. And it was this caveat that has proved to be a legal hurdle for numerous cases. 

This clause has been a particular legal obstacle for three abuse survivors at Creagh Lane national school in the late 1960s,  John Boland, Christy Rainbow and Thomas Hogan. 

In 2009, ex-Christian Brother Sean Drummond was jailed for the abuse of 19 children, aged between seven and nine, at the Bridge Street school. 

During the Limerick Circuit Court trial, the court heard that it was Drummond’s first teaching post and that he had never abused before [his arrival in 1967]. 

“We were the first people that he abused, so therefore there could never have been a prior complaint in our case,” said John Boland, chairperson of the Creagh Lane survivors group. 

John said that it was “an impossibility” to have recorded a prior complaint in this case. 

Following widespread outrage at the Government’s redress scheme, retired judge Iarfhlaith O’Neill was tasked with assessing the scheme. 

On Friday, he concluded that the prior complaint clause is “incompatible” with the ECHR’s judgement; that the condition “risks a continuing breach of rights...of those victims of child sexual abuse in national schools”; and that it excluded “any possibility” of an “holistic and flexible approach” to settlements of historical child sex abuse claims. 

John said is now calling on the Government “to make sure that there are no more obstacles put in our way, and that we do qualify for the scheme. That would be my call.”

Solicitor Ger O’Neill, of O’Neill & Co Solicitors, Glentworth Street, who is representing around 30 victims, is calling on the State to recognise “that they have a moral and legal obligation to these victims and not seek to find further loopholes”.

At this stage, the State has yet to make a decision based on Judge O’Neill’s findings. 

Mr O’Neill said that, according to victims, the State “very wickedly” decided to try and differentiate Louise O’Keefe’s case from other cases. 

“The State argued that as in Louise O’Keefe’s case, there had been a prior complaint against the abuser, that this was a pre-condition for other cases to succeed in Ireland.

“The victims have been put through a nightmare. They have been to hell and back dealing with the State’s attempts to avoid liability,” said Mr O’Neill who has represented the group in Brussels and in the Dail. 

The Creagh Lane victims have also received support from TDs Maurice Quinlivan and Willie O’Dea. 

Deputy Quinlivan has called on the State to act on Judge O’Neill’s report and offer compensation and an apology to the victims nationwide. 

“The State failed these people when they were sexually abused in school, the state failed them when they had to grow up with no supports or help for the awful trauma they went through.

“Unfortunately the state has continued to fail them by putting barriers in their way as they tried to access redress for which they are absolutely entitled,” he said. 

Deputy O’Dea said he is urging the Government to “right a wrong in how this redress scheme has been set up. 

“They need to compensate these victims of sexual abuse immediately. In the interests of justice and humanity, the victims of Creagh Lane National School and other victims of institutional abuse shouldn't have to suffer any longer.”

Welcoming the report, John Boland told the Limerick Leader this Thursday: “We have been kicked around. But it is a good day overall.”