Man to appeal court decision allowing Redress Board application refusal
An man who lost his legal challenge against the Redress Board's refusal to accept his application for compensation is to appeal his case to the Supreme Court.
The Residential Institutions Redress Board had refused to accept the man, who claimed he was abused at an industrial school, application on grounds it was made too late and there were no exceptional circumstances allowing it to be accepted outside the specified time limits.
The man initiated High Court proceedings. However, last week Mr Justice Daniel O'Keeffe dismissed the application.
The judge ruled there was noting irrational or unreasonable in the Board's decision and held it was entitled to conclude no exceptional circumstances existed in the man's case.
Today the Judge was told that the Board said it was not seeking its costs of the action which was heard over two days at the High Court. It is understood that the man is to appeal that judgment to the Supreme Court.
The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, is aged in his 70s and has lived in the UK since the mid 1950's. He had been in St Patrick’s industrial school at Upton in Cork for six years, where he claims he was abused.
The man claimed he was unaware of the redress scheme until November 13, 2005, when he saw an advertisement in The News of the World. He claimed he did not understand the process, that there was a closing date of December 2005, or how to apply.
He said he was eventually advised about the redress scheme at the Irish Centre in Coventry in early 2006 and on January 23, 2006, had filled out an application form.
That was rejected by the Board, initially in May 2006 and again in May 2007, as being out of time.
As a result of the Board's initial refusal the man and 17 others similarly refused took High Court proceedings which were settled on the basis of an agreement for the Board to hold oral hearings relating to each case.
The oral hearing into the man's case took place last October and, in December 2008, the board again rejected the man's application.
