De zo geliefde belastingbetaler

Sex abuse ruling 'could open floodgates on school claims'
By Tim Healy
Saturday June 14 2008

THE Supreme Court yesterday reserved judgment on a test action to determine if the State is liable for sexual assaults by a national school principal on an eight-year-old girl.

The State could face "extraordinary" claims if it is found vicariously liable for the 20 sexual assaults by school principal Leo Hickey on Louise O'Keeffe when she was a pupil at Dunderrow National School, Co Cork, in 1973, James O'Driscoll, for the Minister for Education and State, argued yesterday.

These could include claims by people that they had not received a proper education because a teacher wasn't good or was incapable due to certain factors, counsel said.

This would be an impossible situation for the State and Ms O'Keeffe was seeking to have the court push "far too wide" the definition of vicarious liability, he said.......

The three-day hearing of the case concluded yesterday before the five-judge court and the Chief Justice, Mr Justice John Murray, said the court would reserve its decision....
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State is liable for sex abuse in schools, court told
By Tim Healy
Friday June 13 2008

It is "grossly utilitarian'' to argue that the State should have no liability for the sexual abuse of children in national schools because this would lead to many other claims relating to events in such places, the Supreme Court was told yesterday.
The claim came on day two of a case taken by a woman sexually assaulted by a national school principal as a child.
Louise O'Keeffe has asked the Supreme Court to rule that the Minister for Education and the State are liable for the assaults.
.....
Landmark
The action is regarded as a test case with over 200 similar cases awaiting its outcome.
A complaint was made in 1971 by another parent about Hickey to the acting school manager and local curate, Fr O Ceallaigh. However, Hickey remained in his post, the court heard. Ms O'Keeffe alleges the State is also vicariously liable for the failure of Fr O Ceallaigh to report the complaint to the Department of Education.
After parents withdrew female children from the school in protest later in 1973, Mr Hickey ultimately resigned in January 1974. He was employed the following month at a boys' school in Ballincollig, Cork and continued to teach until his recognition as a teacher was withdrawn after criminal proceedings in the late 1990s. Hickey was jailed for three years in 1998 after pleading guilty to 21 sample charges of indecent assaults on 21 girls.
Ms O'Keeffe's High Court proceedings against Hickey and the State were heard by judge Eamon de Valera in 2004 with judgment delivered in 2006.

The case is expected to conclude today with judgment reserved.
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Kiss up, kick down.
By Gene Kerrigan
Sunday October 29 2006

WHEN it comes to bullying, this Government picks its targets carefully. Louise O'Keeffe is just the latest in a line of vulnerable people to feel the Government's steel toecaps kicking their shins. Equipped with legal hammers provided by its learned friends (and this Government has a lot of learned friends), the habitual response to a challenge by vulnerable people is to lay about them, beating the defenceless into submission.

At which point, given that the Taoiseach relies on his famous charm, the Government finds it useful to adopt a magnanimous pose.

Confronted by the powerful, on the other hand, the Government simpers and frets - and invites them along to the Fianna Fail tent at the Galway races.
So it is in the O'Keeffe case. When this woman dared raise her head and demand justice from the State, the Government instinctively moved to crush her.

Louise O'Keeffe is 42. In 1973, when she was eight years of age and attending Dunderrow national school in Kinsale, she was sexually assaulted by Leo Hickey, the school principal, suffering catastrophic injuries. Hickey was found guilty, in June 1998, of 21 sample counts of abuse, out of 380, involving 21 girls.

In September of that year, Louise O'Keeffe began legal proceedings against Hickey, the Minister for Education, Ireland and the Attorney General. Hickey didn't defend the case. That left the Minister and the State.

Just eight months later, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern apologised to the children who had, over decades, been sexually abused in institutions run by the Catholic Church. He accepted that the State had some liability in the matter, since the State sent the kids to suffer the tender mercies of the church. The State began negotiations with the church, to divide up financial responsibility.
Over the next few years, as Louise O'Keeffe's case slowly made its way through the system, the State made a secret deal with the Catholic Church, over financial liability for child abuse by 18 Catholic congregations.

Last week in the Dail, the Taoiseach spoke of Louise O'Keeffe's effort to establish that the State had responsibilities to the children abused, because it employed a child abuser. Mr Ahern said the State had "a strong defence". Depends how you look at it.

The evidence that Louise O'Keeffe was dreadfully sexually assaulted was not opposed. The State put up three purely technical defences. First, that 25 years had passed between the assault in 1973 and the proceedings in 1998. Therefore, the case was barred by the Statute of Limitations.

Second, the passage of time placed an unfair burden on the defence - for instance, the State was deprived of hearing the evidence of the manager of the school, Canon Stritch, who had since died. Therefore the case shouldn't go ahead.

Third, the State didn't employ Leo Hickey, the manager did.

Last January, Mr Justice de Valera shot down the first two technicalities. He upheld the third, based on precedents set in cases heard in 2002 and 2003.

The State immediately applied for its costs, ensuring that Louise O'Keeffe now faces a bill for about half a million euro. O'Keeffe won against Leo Hickey, and was awarded €300,000. It's doubtful if Hickey has any money. O'Keeffe fears she may lose her house.

The judge was entitled to reach such a conclusion and did so fairly and sincerely. One could also fairly and sincerely disagree with that conclusion.
Essentially the judge decided that 1) the State paid Hickey's salary; 2) it was responsible for ensuring he was suitably qualified for the job; but, 3) the State didn't technically employ him. The school manager, the late Canon Stritch, did.

To some of us, the contention that the State does not employ national school teachers flies in the face of reality. The State determines how many teachers are employed in any national school, lays down the conditions of employment, pays their salaries and supervises their performance. But, in the words of the Taoiseach, "they are not State employees".

The State required that O'Keeffe and the other kids attend the school, just as the State required that children be sent to other Catholic institutions for which it accepts liability.

The Government's "strong defence" involved hiding behind legal technicalities. It offered no moral defence of its position - it had none.

The nearest thing to a moral defence came from the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin: "The State has a responsibility to the taxpayer to fight cases where it knows it has a strong defence", and to demand costs.

Ah, the sainted 'taxpayer'.

This from the Government that without apology squandered millions on the PPARS fiasco, and the electronic voting machines, both of which continue to drain the public purse. This from the Government that wasted tens of millions clearing the way for the Bertie Bowl that was never built.

This from the Government that made a sweetheart deal with the Catholic Church, under which the taxpayer is liable for £1.3 billion, while the Church has to cough up less than a tenth of that.

In that sweetheart deal, the Catholic Church in Ireland is liable for an average of about £9,000 per child abused by 18 Catholic congregations. In comparison, last week the Catholic Church in Los Angeles agreed a settlement with seven victims abused by the Carmelite order that averaged $1.4m each.

The excuse for the sweetheart deal was that the church couldn't afford the compensation. But the Government never audited the wealth of the church, and eventually accepted a settlement involving useless land transfers and other derisory elements.

And the fact that Louise O'Keeffe can't afford half a million didn't stop the State tackling her with its studs showing.

Now comes the spurious magnanimity.
In the Dail, Ahern said the State is approaching O'Keeffe in "a measured and sensitive way", and "there was no question whatsoever of her losing her house".
However, "arrangements would have to be made regarding costs". In short, for eight years, the State has faced down a woman to whom it knew it was morally liable, hiding behind technicalities. In the sainted name of the taxpayer. Even now, it holds over her the threat of 'arrangements' to which she must agree.

This isn't about money - half a million is peanuts in the context of this Government's ability to squander. It's about teaching people like O'Keeffe not to be uppity. Mess with us, we'll put you through the grinder.

This kind of thing isn't unique to Fianna Fail and the PDs. Remember how a Fine Gael government used legal threats to bully a dying woman, Brigid McCole? It's a technique of government. Kiss-up, kick-down.

Proven thieves are welcome, along with the great and the good, in the tents where donations are solicited. The powerful get to rub shoulders, to network and to compound their power, however anti-social or just downright illegal the behaviour of some. At budget time, the powerful have the ear of government.

When the vulnerable dare get uppity, the legal hammers are waved. Hepatitis C victims, haemophiliacs fatally poisoned by the State, elderly nursing home patients who had their pockets picked while the State turned a blind eye to massive tax evasion. Parents of autistic children, desperate to acquire appropriate education for them. Legions of carers, cheap labour, looking after sick and helpless relatives, people whose love and sense of duty is abused so the State can escape its responsibilities.

All vulnerable, all treated with contempt, and ruthlessly pursued should they dare seek legal redress. It's a kiss-up kick-down government, in a kiss-up kick-down world.
- Gene Kerrigan