The High Court ruled that anyone who was abused in residential institutions up to the age of 21 will be entitled to seek redress. Up to now the cut-off point was 18.

Patrick Walsh, the British spokesman for the Irish Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA), said it was obvious to anybody with a sense of justice that the 18 religious organisations would have to revisit the €128 million indemnity agreement that it made with the state in 2002.

“The ramifications of the court’s ruling are quite extensive and the matter will become more crystallised over the next few days but the Government is looking at a substantial increase in the State’s liability. The hope now is that the Church bodies do the proper thing and agree to revisit the indemnity agreement,” he said.

The challenge to provisions of the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002 was brought by a woman who had turned 18 just days before she was admitted to St Patrick’s Mother and Baby Home on the Navan Road, Dublin, in 1968 after becoming pregnant by an older brother.

She suffered abuse at the home, where she remained until 1969, but was not entitled to redress as she was over 18 at the time of the abuse.

Her younger sister, also pregnant allegedly by an older brother, was admitted to the same home on the same day and ultimately secured redress for abuse suffered there because she was under 18. Both girls alleged they had been abused in the family home for 10 or 11 years by their two older brothers.

Section 1.1 of the 2002 act defines a “child” as a person under 18 and section 7 of the act provides redress may only be paid to a child.

Mr Justice O’Neill ruled that the definition of “child” as a person under 18 years and cognate words including childhood in section 1.1 is unconstitutional.

He upheld arguments by James O’Reilly SC that the woman was discriminated against contrary to article 40.1 of the constitution — the right to be held equal before the law — in that she was not being considered to be a child at the time she lived in the mother and baby home.

He also ruled the discrimination was not relevant to or justified by any legitimate legislative purpose and failed to reflect social conditions of the 1960s when persons under 21 were minors in law.

He said the state’s “understandable desire” to clearly limit the extent of the redress scheme could not justify excluding from the scheme persons who enjoyed, in law, the status of children during the time they were resident in an residential institution. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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(Source: IE)