The Supreme Court has upheld the under-18 age limit governing access to the Residential Institutions Redress Scheme, overturning a High Court judgment that had found the definition of a child in the 2002 legislation unconstitutional.
The case concerned a woman identified as J.D., who was born on 31 October 1950. She alleged that she had been sexually abused by her brothers at home and became pregnant. Her mother placed her in St Patrick’s Mother and Baby Home on Navan Road in Dublin in November 1968, 11 days after she turned 18.
She gave birth to a son on 31 December 1968. The child was taken from her and placed for adoption. J.D. left the home in April 1969.
She applied to the Residential Institutions Redress Board in May 2005. Her application was refused because the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002 defines a child as a person who has not attained the age of 18. The Review Committee upheld that refusal in October 2006.
The High Court later found the statutory definition unconstitutional, reasoning that in 1968 a person under 21 was still legally a minor and that excluding J.D., while permitting claims by younger residents including her sister, amounted to unjustified age discrimination.
The Supreme Court disagreed. Delivering the judgment of the court, Chief Justice Murray held that legal minority and childhood were not the same concept. The fact that the age of majority was then 21 did not mean every person under 21 would naturally have been regarded as a child.
The court held that the Oireachtas was entitled to establish a special compensation scheme for abuse suffered during childhood and to define that class by reference to an under-18 age limit. That classification was objective, legitimate and neither arbitrary nor irrational.
The State’s appeal was therefore allowed and J.D.’s constitutional challenge to the legislation was dismissed.