Abuse survivor Louise O'Keefe seeks meeting with Taoiseach

By Conor Ryan
Irish Examiner
August 5, 2014

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/abuse-survivor-louise-okeefe-seeks-meeting-with-taoiseach-278075.html

Louise O’Keeffe, who defeated the Irish Government in the European courts, has demanded a meeting with the Taoiseach to discuss her disappointment at the State’s response to the landmark judgment in her case.

In January she was awarded €30,000 by the European Court of Human Rights because the State had failed to protect her from being abused by her primary school principal, Leo Hickey in 1973.

She has now criticised the Government’s newly-published response to the Council of Europe and what she said was a failure to deliver the comprehensive reply that had been promised.

In January Taoiseach Enda Kenny apologised to Ms O’Keeffe for what she had endured at Dunderrow national school, near Kinsale, in 1973.

He also apologised for what she had gone through since then, as she fought a 15-year legal action against the Department of Education to have its culpability in the crimes recognised.

At the time Mr Kenny also offered to meet her.

Yesterday Ms O’Keeffe told RTÉ said she has now sent an email to the Taoiseach’s department asking that he and the Minister for Education, Jan O’Sullivan, meet her “no later than the end of September”.

She said she had expected a comprehensive reply to be delivered to the Council of Europe by July 28 but instead a holding statement was delivered.

In the Department of Education’s draft response to the O’Keeffe case, published on Friday, it said an interdepartmental subcommittee had been formed to review child protection measures in the school system and the impact of the judgment.

But Ms O’Keeffe said this committee cannot be allowed to complete its work without input from those affected and “simply must include people who have been abused”.

“They have to invite people who have been abused into this committee... they cannot thoroughly understand what people have gone through unless they listen and thoroughly listen to what they have gone through,” she said.

In its response to the Council of Europe, the Department did not clarify what it intends to do about other legal actions that had been taken by former pupils.

It said the State Claims Agency was still reviewing the cases to see which ones it believes are affected by the judgment.

Ms O’Keeffe said that it was not satisfactory that the State had not agreed to return to the claims that had been dropped by victims in similar situations following the initial adverse ruling in the Irish courts.

On Friday James MacGuill, solicitor for approximately 20 people who had lodged cases against the State, said the Government needed to make its position on these cases clear.

He said he suspected there had been no change and that the Government would not take on board the decision in Ms O’Keeffe’s case.

The Taoiseach’s department was not in a position yesterday to respond to Ms O’Keeffe’s request.