When the Supreme Court this week decided not to award costs to the State in the Louise O'Keeffe case, her over-riding emotion was relief. But she has no regrets about her 10-year battle to establish State responsibility for the sexual abuse of pupils by teachers
'I GOT UP THIS morning and the sun was shining and it reflected how I felt," says Louise O'Keeffe, smiling as she ponders on a week when she finally enjoyed some legal success, with the Supreme Court opting not to award the State costs against her in an unsuccessful action. "One of the papers said I was overjoyed. I would have been overjoyed if I had won the point at issue, and I didn't do that, but there was a definite sense of relief," adds the 44-year-old mother of two young children, who protectively prefers for their names not to be published.
O'Keeffe's story has been well chronicled in the media ever since she took legal action against the State over sexual abuse she suffered as an eight-year-old schoolgirl in the 1970s at the hands of her primary-school principal, Leo Hickey. She was one of 21 former pupils who made complaints to gardaí in 1996 and 1997 that they had been sexually abused by Hickey when he was principal of the two-teacher Dunderrow National School near Kinsale in the 1960s and 1970s.
An extensive Garda investigation followed, and more than a year later, on June 25th 1998, O'Keeffe and 13 of the other 20 women who had made complaints against Hickey took the opportunity in court to tell of the impact the abuse had on their lives.
That day was sweltering hot and, at Cork Circuit Criminal Court, the relentlessly harrowing accounts of the devastation caused by Hickey drained everyone. Even today O'Keeffe recalls the strange sensation of recognising her own experience through the voices of others.
"I hadn't seen a lot of the girls for a long time . . . we had moved out of the area. But when we were giving testimony . . . there was one girl who had attended counselling . . . and when she was telling of the impact that the abuse had on her, she could have put my name on the statement.
"I couldn't believe that somebody could tell how I was feeling - it really hit me. And, that same day, there was another girl who had travelled by bus to the hearing and she had missed her bus and I actually took her home.
"I was fine when I was getting her home, but on the journey back to my own house, I had to stop the car a number of times. I was actually physically sick from hearing her story and knowing where she was coming from and having realised where I was coming from."
O'Keeffe says that the three-year jail sentence handed down to Hickey, who had pleaded guilty to 21 sample counts of sexually assaulting each of the girls, was far from satisfactory and left her with a sense of justice unfulfilled. The judge announced that he was allotting 12 months for the first count, 12 months for the second count and 12 months for the third count. Hickey got 12 months on each of the remaining 18 counts, but they were all concurrent with the first three.
"You sort of felt: 'Well, which one was I?'" says O'Keeffe. "That there were three girls that he got jailed for and the rest of us were left out to dry . . . It's little enough to get 12 months for doing it to one girl, because each of the 21 counts were sample counts, and he destroyed lives."
AT THAT STAGE, O'Keeffe didn't envisage taking any civil action, but over the ensuing months, she decided there was an issue at stake. First she went to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal, where she was awarded €54,000. She then took the matter further and took an action against both Hickey and the Department of Education to the High Court in September 1998.
Mr Justice Eamon de Valera heard the case in March 2004 and delivered his judgement 22 months later on January 20th, 2006. He found for O'Keeffe against Hickey, who did not defend the case and she was awarded more than €305,000 in damages which Hickey is paying to her at the rate of €400 a month.
However he ruled against her in her claim against the Department of Education and awarded the State its estimated costs of €500,000.
Fearful of losing her home, despite promises from various government ministers that the State would not pursue her for costs, O'Keeffe appealed the High Court decision to the Supreme Court, which upheld the High Court ruling on December 19th last year.
The Supreme Court ruled that the State was not vicariously liable for the abuse suffered by O'Keeffe at the hands of Hickey as there was no formal or substantive employment relationship between Hickey and the Minister for Education. The court reserved its decision on costs. Coming so close to Christmas, this marked the lowest ebb for O'Keeffe in her 10-year battle against the State.
"I was at the stage where I was preparing myself for the worst every time I went to Dublin, but you still always hoped that they could see your point and that your argument was right and that what I felt was justice would prevail," she says.
"The fact that it was the last step made it harder. It was just awful . . . it was Christmas, and Christmas is a time for children, and I was very conscious of the fact that I would have to try and hold things very much together for them, so I really was being torn apart.
"I remember going to midnight Mass and the tears were coming, but I was holding it together . . . This lady came over at the end of Mass and she wished me a happy Christmas and said she was sorry for what happened - and I just burst out crying into her face."
Despondent all throughout January and February of this year, O'Keeffe says she remained fearful that the State would pursue her for its legal costs - estimated at between €500,000 and €1 million - and that she would be forced to sell her home.
"I know various Ministers said that I wouldn't have to sell my house, but the Department of Education did go in and seek costs," she says. "And if they had been awarded costs, they could have sought an order for deductions, a payment every week.
"If they had sought an order of €50 every week, it would have affected my ability to pay the mortgage, it would affect the children, because I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't go out and everything I do is geared totally and absolutely towards the children."
To O'Keeffe's utter relief, the Supreme Court this week refused to grant the State an order for costs. While she still has to resolve the issue of her own costs, she is no longer facing the nightmare scenario that her action could have cost her and her children their home. She knows she can still appeal the Supreme Court ruling to the European Court of Human Rights, but she won't rush into any decision on that right now. Asked if she has any regrets about taking her case to the highest court in the land, she is adamant that she has none, other than the time with her children which such a lengthy legal action has cost her. She says she would do it all again.
"One of the reasons that I feel so strongly about it is that this has been going on for almost 11 years and the Department of Education has been hell-bent all that time on keeping the legislation as it is, so that it is not liable for abuse by the teachers whose salaries and pensions it pays.
"It is passing the responsibility down to the boards of management and I think that, even if it doesn't do it retrospectively, it should at least change the legislation now, so that the department is responsible and children from today onward can be protected."
O'KEEFFE HOPES that her case will encourage people who have been abused to go and talk to somebody rather than suffer in silence. "I think if my case stops the abuse for one child and makes them aware there is somebody still fighting, and that there are people out there that they can talk to, then they might be able to break out of the silence and get help. Then it will be enough," she says.