IPPN

Published: 24 February 2009

Source: Irish Independent

By Ralph Riegel

Tuesday February 24 2009

EDUCATION Minister Batt O'Keeffe has assured a distraught mother that there is no question of the State forcing her to sell her home to pay an estimated €750,000 in legal costs after she lost a landmark Supreme Court ruling.

Louise O'Keeffe (43) lost a high-profile action she took against the State to the Supreme Court last year after she claimed the Department of Education was vicariously liable for abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of a primary school teacher. In an emotional reaction to the court ruling last December, the Cork mother admitted she now feared she could lose her home if the state pursued her for costs, now estimated to exceed €750,000.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court reserved its position on the matter, after hearing that the State is now seeking its costs.

But last night the minister assured Ms O'Keeffe that she need have no fears about losing her home and that the State would adopt "a humane" approach to the issue.

However, Mr O'Keeffe defended the State's decision to contest the action, warning that a vital legal issue had to be clarified.

"What you must understand is that it was Louise O'Keeffe who was seeking costs -- and obviously, as a department, we had to have clarification of that and to seek our own costs," the minister told the Irish Independent.

"It was in fact Louise's legal representatives who took the case. But there was an extremely important point of law at issue. Obviously, as a department, we were pleased that that was clarified.

"And that clarification was that the department was not responsible in any way for the management of the school. That function resides with the board of management, with the school itself, and the department was not found negligent as such."

The minister said that the issue of costs would be dealt with sensitively and carefully -- but the State had to clarify an important liability and costs question.

"You just cannot give a carte blanche for every other solicitor in the state to pursue cases like that on the basis that, win or lose, they were going to get their costs," he warned.

It is understood that 200 cases similar to that taken by Ms O'Keeffe are now facing the State.

"I cannot run my department on that basis -- but what we have said, and this is very important, is that there is no question of Ms O'Keeffe losing her house," the minister said.

Humane

"We have said, and the Taoiseach has said quite clearly in the Dail, that the State Claims Agency would deal with this in a very humane way.

"But, obviously, it would be inappropriate for me to make any comment in relation to any aspect of the claim, until such time as the Supreme Court had given its decision on costs," he added.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the State could not be held vicariously liable for 20 sexual assaults on Ms O'Keeffe by the then-school principal, Leo Hickey, in 1973, when she was an eight-year old girl attending a primary school in Cork.

Hickey was jailed for three years in 1998 after being convicted of indecently assaulting a number of girls.

He has since been ordered to pay compensation to Ms O'Keeffe for his treatment of her while a student at the national school.

- Ralph Riegel