Child sexual abuse survivors from Dunderrow National School have secured a mediation process with the Government as part of their long-running campaign for redress.
A group of 19 women, who are now in their 60s and 70s, are planning to take legal action against the State for its failure to pay them redress for the abuse they suffered at the state run school in west Cork.
In 1998 Leo Hickey, the former principal of Dunderrow National School, was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment having pleaded guilty to 21 sample counts from 387 charges of sexually abusing 21 young girls between 1964 and 1973. In 2017, Hickey was jailed again for sexually abusing a nine-year-old boy in a different school in the 1990s.
The school is the same one that was attended by Louise O’Keeffe, who received compensation in 2014 after a long-running legal battle against the State culminated in a victory at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). But other survivors who attended the same school were excluded from two previous redress schemes as they did not meet the strict criteria required to apply.
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The group of 19 women are being represented by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC). According to the Government, IHREC had called on the State to engage in formal mediation with the women.
On Tuesday, Minister for Education Hildegarde Naughton secured Government approval to enter into mediation. The Department of Education will respond formally to the request from IHREC this week.
The same Cabinet meeting included a discussion about issues relating to domestic, sexual and gender based violence.
Separately, Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan briefed Ministers that the EU is about to agree to extend temporary protection for Ukrainian people to March 2028. O’Callaghan told ministers that this was based on recent discussions at the Justice Home Affairs Council. This will be the sixth year that temporary protection has been available since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Minister for Communications Patrick O’Donovan is continuing to rest and recover after he was hospitalised following a medical incident while he was travelling on Government business to an EU presidency event in Brussels last week.
O’Donovan did not attend Cabinet on Tuesday and has been recovering with his family since he returned to Ireland on Friday.
A Government spokesman described the Minister’s condition as stable, “but it requires medical management, treatment and care to get him back to full health.”
It is not known how long O’Donovan may need to take off work while he recovers.
