The High Court has upheld the Residential Institutions Redress Board’s refusal to accept a late compensation application from a former resident of St Patrick’s Industrial School in Upton, Co Cork.
J. O’B., then aged 74 and living in Coventry, England, said he had been resident at the institution from 1947 to 1953 and claimed he was abused there. He submitted an application to the Board in early 2006, after the statutory deadline of 15 December 2005.
O’B. said he had been unaware of the redress scheme until seeing an advertisement in an English national newspaper in November 2005. His written evidence initially stated that he telephoned the Board immediately and received information about two weeks before the deadline.
However, during an oral hearing in October 2008, the Board found that his evidence indicated he had not contacted it until after the death and funeral of his half-brother around the end of December 2005. The Board regarded his oral account as truthful and concluded that, despite knowing about the scheme in November, he had taken no action before the closing date.
O’B. argued in the High Court that the Board had acted irrationally, relied on an erroneous factual finding and wrongly treated ignorance of the scheme as incapable of constituting exceptional circumstances.
Mr Justice Daniel O’Keeffe rejected those grounds. He held that ignorance of the scheme or its deadline, by itself, did not have to be treated as an exceptional circumstance under section 8 of the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002. The Board was entitled to examine each applicant’s personal circumstances and decide whether something unusual had prevented or inhibited a timely application.
The judge also found sufficient evidence supporting the Board’s conclusion that O’B. knew of the scheme in November 2005 and had an adequate opportunity to apply before 15 December. The decision was neither irrational nor unreasonable.
The judicial review application was therefore dismissed.