The full meaning of a number of crucial provisions of the 1995 Occupiers Liability Act have yet to be analysed by the courts. So, Professor Bryan McMahon of NUI Galway says "for the present we can only make educated guesses about what they will decide."

The Act divides people who go on to property into three categories - visitors, trespassers and recreational users. As might be expected, the occupier's liability is different in each case.

A clear warning of a particular danger may have the effect of discharging the school's duty of care as occupier. The mere giving of a warning will not suffice unless "in all circumstances it was enough to enable the visitor, by having regard to the warning, to avoid the injury or damage."

McMahon gave the example of a warning to 12-yearold pupils "not to pull heavily a window blind that had seen better days might well discharge the school management's duty of care under the 1995 Act to those pupils, who would have little or no need in the first place to touch the blind. But a warning to pupils that the seats on which they are sitting are unsafe would not suffice. They could hardly be expected to stand all day in the classroom."

When it comes to trespassers without criminal intent, the Act requires that school management neither acts with reckless disregard for them nor intentionally injures them. With regard to criminal entrants, the occupier is relieved of the duty not to act with reckless disregard but the duty not to injure the entrant or damage his or property intentionally remains.

McMahon notes that the 1996 Children Bill proposed that the age of criminal responsibility be raised from seven to 10 years. "Even though the measure has not yet been enacted, it may encourage the courts to treat children under 10 with particular indulgence," he says.