MANY abuse victims are dropping their civil claims against the Department of Education in the wake of the landmark Louise O'Keeffe ruling.The Irish Independent has learned that the plaintiff whose case was next scheduled to come before the Supreme Court on appeal has now indicated he is dropping his action.
And up to five other individuals have indicated that since Ms O'Keeffe (43) lost her Supreme Court appeal last December, they are unlikely to proceed with their cases amid fears of having punitive legal costs awarded against them.
The Supreme Court last week ruled that legal costs of €750,000 should not be awarded against the Cork mother of two -- despite the fact that she had lost both her High Court and Supreme Court cases against the Department of Education.
Lobby groups have urged the Government to clarify legal liability issues over the Supreme Court ruling on Ms O'Keeffe's primary school abuse claim.
The department faces a backlog of 200 similar cases taken over abuse that occurred in schools nationwide -- but those cases are now dwindling fast as claimants refuse to risk having massive costs awarded against them.
The first of the backlog of 200 cases was expected before the courts by the autumn -- but the individual has since indicated that he is dropping his action. Three separate actions lodged by pupils from the same Clare school are also in the process of being halted.
The Supreme Court last week held that there were exceptional reasons why the State should not secure legal costs of an estimated €750,000 against Ms O'Keeffe.
However, other abuse victims fear that the Supreme Court will not hold that the same exceptional reasons apply in other cases.
The Government had feared it faced a potential €200m bill if the 200-plus similar cases took the same legal route as that of Ms O'Keeffe.
Ms O'Keeffe is considering a possible European Court challenge, but stressed she would have to carefully weigh up the personal and family consequences of fighting a legal battle which had already taken up 10 years of her life.
"It is something I would have to think very carefully about; it is certainly not something that I could hurry into," she told the Irish Independent.
She insisted she had no regrets over fighting her marathon legal battle with the Department of Education, despite the heavy toll it had taken on her family.
Ordeal
"If there was any little regret at all, it would be the time it (the case) has taken over the years. Really, in terms of the time I lost which could have been spent with my children," she added.
Ms O'Keeffe admitted she now "hopes and prays" that no one else has to endure what she has suffered. "It has been a terrible ordeal, particularly over recent months and years when I was absolutely terrified I was going to lose my home. I have lived with this whole thing for more than 10 years," she said.
The department clearly flagged the fact that it intended to defend the backlog of actions on the basis that school boards of management are legally responsible for in-school activities and the Department of Education cannot be held to be vicariously or ultimately liable.
One-In-Four director Maeve Lewis said it was now vital that specific legal issues be clarified, with 200 further such cases in the pipeline.
"It is vitally important that ordinary people have access to the courts to determine very serious issues like this, Louise had the courage to pursue this not knowing that it was going to end like this. She was actually prepared to accept that she might have lost her home," she said.
Ms O'Keeffe had been abused as an eight-year-old girl in a Cork primary school by her then-principal, Leo Hickey.
She sued the State over the 1970s' abuse incidents, claiming the department was liable as they had paid the teacher's wages, supervised the school curriculum, paid the teacher's pension and inspected the classrooms.
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