The High Court has rejected a challenge by two former Limerick Prison inmates to the State settlement scheme created for prisoners who were required to use cells without in-cell sanitation and to 'slop out'.
Mr Justice Conleth Bradley held that Paul Coffey and Tony Collopy had not established that the scheme was outside the statutory powers of the National Treasury Management Agency, which administers it through the State Claims Agency.
Both men served custodial sentences in Limerick Prison from different dates in 2021 and spent periods in single-person cells without in-cell sanitation. Conditions later improved, with sanitation available to all prisoners there before the end of 2022.
The settlement scheme followed Supreme Court rulings which found that slopping out infringed constitutional personal rights and awarded €7,500 damages in an earlier case. It provides different compensation rates and caps depending on prison conditions, with a maximum of €7,500 in its highest category.
Coffey and Collopy had previously applied under the scheme but rejected the offers made to them. Their judicial review challenge argued that the scheme did not properly apply to constitutional claims of the type they intended to pursue and was ultra vires the National Treasury Management Agency (Amendment) Act 2000.
The High Court rejected that argument. It found that the statutory framework gave the agency broad powers to manage classes of claims and noted that a 2015 ministerial decision had classified slopping-out claims as mainly claims for personal injury compensation. That decision had not itself been challenged and continued to enjoy a presumption of validity.
The court also found that the men had not shown prejudice from the scheme's existence. They remain free to pursue damages, including aggravated, exemplary or punitive damages, outside the scheme.
Mr Justice Bradley refused the declaratory and scheme-setting-aside reliefs but allowed the damages portion of both cases to continue as plenary civil proceedings. Costs and procedural directions were left for a later hearing.