I wish to address the devastating case of 19 women who were sexually abused by the former school principal in Dunderrow National School and who are now being forced to take legal action against the State to seek redress. Given that Louise O'Keeffe successfully established before the European Court of Human Rights that the State failed in its duty to protect children, how can the Government justify a situation where other victims of the same abuser in the same school continue to be excluded from redress? We need statements in the Dáil this week in relation to that.

Sentiment score: -0.50

I want to raise the deeply distressing case of the 19 women abused by a former school principal at Dunderrow National School in west Cork. These women suffered unimaginable abuse as children. One survivor described how you were not safe anywhere in that school - not in the classroom, not in the bathroom, not even the school grounds - yet decades later, many of these women remain excluded from redress despite the fact that Louise O'Keeffe successfully proved before the European Court of Human Rights that the Irish State failed in its duty to protect children from abuse. Today, these women are being forced to consider legal action simply to obtain recognition and justice. This cannot be right. They are now being told to wait for further reviews and an interdepartmental process when many of these women with whom I have spoken to have already spent decades seeking acknowledgement and justice. Does the Taoiseach accept that forcing survivors into lengthy legal proceedings risks further traumatising them? Will he commit to engaging directly with the women involved to seek resolution without the need for court action and if he engages, how soon these innocent women can be included in redress?

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