The briefing was hosted by the European Implementation Network (EIN), based in Strasbourg, who also arranged for Louise O’Keeffe to attend and speak to delegates. EIN advocates for the full and timely implementation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and facilitates engagement with the Council of Europe’s structures.

At the hearing, consisting of Permanent Representations of the Council of Europe, commissioner Noeline Blackwell briefed delegates on the State’s failure to implement this judgment. She advocated again for the Committee of Ministers to increase its supervision of the implementation of the O’Keeffe judgment – to what is known as the ‘enhanced’ supervision procedure.

Louise O’Keeffe also presented. In 2014, after years of litigation, she successfully took Ireland to the ECtHR for failing to protect her from the abuse she suffered at a primary school in the 1970s in West Cork.

However, despite numerous apologies to victims, the State continues to fail to implement the 2014 O’Keeffe v. Ireland judgment appropriately. The Commission is of the view that the lack of coherence in the State’s approach to survivors of sexual abuse in schools shows a discriminatory and arbitrary approach to survivors.

Currently, as domestic law stands, the Supreme Court’s decision in O’Keeffe v. Hickey [2009] remains the law in Ireland today and, accordingly, the State is not vicariously liable for historical child sexual abuse suffered in schools. In addition, any survivors who seek to institute proceedings in respect of historical sexual abuse today would face significant difficulties in establishing that their claim is not statute-barred.

Ms Blackwell said: “For the ECtHR process to have any credibility, both in Ireland and Europe, in light of Ireland’s persistent failure to implement the judgment, it is crucial that this case is urgently transferred to enhanced supervision, if victims’ rights are to be vindicated.

“The practical effect of the consistently narrow and illogical position adopted by the Government in response to this case has been to deprive people who suffered sexual abuse as children within the national primary and post primary school system of an effective remedy. Ten years on, that deprivation of justice is cruelly intensified as victims grow older, with some having no hope of receiving justice or closure.”