Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful we have had another opportunity in this House to acknowledge the pain and damage done to children in the care of the State and the church and the great wrong that was done to them. However, people have moved on from that in many ways. How we got here is a horrible part of our dark history which, sadly, is still playing out in many different aspects. What we are trying to do now is decide how we can remedy the wrong that was done. We cannot undo the damage that was caused to these people and which remains with them all through their lives, but we can help to make things a little better for them in the future.

One of the problems we face in doing that is that the system that was put in place to offer redress and allow people to access necessary supports has itself become an institution for re-traumatising and re-victimising people. If nothing else comes out of this debate, I ask the Minister to pay heed to the clear signal from every Member who spoke that this has to stop. What Caranua has been doing to people is unacceptable. For a publicly funded body to treat victims in this way is utterly appalling. That message must go out loud and clear.

In terms of the Bill itself, the Minister only had only one objection and a bit of an excuse, neither of which stacks up. He dwelled, first, on his concern that if we enact the first amendment in the Bill, to allow people who missed out on the original redress scheme to apply, we will be opening the floodgates. That does not make sense given the age profile of the groups involved and the numbers who did get redress, most of whom have not applied to this scheme. The notion that tens of thousands of others will present is absolutely not founded in reality. We are dealing with the small numbers of survivors who missed out on the original offer because they did not know about it or were out of the country. That said, if this is the Minister's only problem, let us take out that provision and allow the remaining proposals to proceed to Committee Stage. That particular provision is only one of six contained in the Bill. There is nothing to prevent us from implementing the other five amendments and thereby immediately serving to improve the situation of the persons involved. I hope the Minister will consider that proposal in advance of the vote on the Bill next week. Even setting aside my certainty it would not lead to the problems the Minister has suggested, it is a little disingenuous to focus on only one part of the Bill. We could always deal with the provision he considers problematic at a later stage. I ask Fianna Fáil Members to consider taking the same approach as their objection is the same as the Minister's.

The other half-objection or excuse the Minister raised was that the review is under way and should be given time to conclude. He also claimed the review could not have been done any earlier because there would not have been enough data to go on. That is simply wrong, as Deputy Nolan clearly showed. In fact, the legislation included a provision for a review to be undertaken well before now. That review should, under the legislation, have been conducted years ago. Every time I raised this issue with the Minister's predecessors, the former Deputy Ruairí Quinn and Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, the answer was not that more data were required but that the review would be done later that year or in the coming months, or the Department was looking at bringing forward the terms of reference. We began to think these would be the terms of reference of the century, containing monumental provisions. Instead we have got a one-page document with an awful lot of blurb. It certainly was not worth waiting for. In terms of asking for time, I must be blunt and point out that time is something some of the people accessing the scheme do not have. We must move with urgency and I appeal to colleagues to take that on board.

It is notable that Caranua has been loudly criticised from every side of the House in the debate. I received an e-mail this week from a man named Keith in which he stated:

I have pleaded for help from them [Caranua] from the outset and they have given me no help to date. They ignored me to the point where I nearly took my life. All I want is the help they said they'd give me in the booklet that I received in February 2016. It said I'd be treated with respect and dignity. I have not been. And then I get a letter in September 2016 that I'm being accepted but don't contact them, an adviser will be in touch in the next 18 to 20 weeks. That time has passed. I contacted them again to be told I'd be waiting for much, much longer, the same time again, that they were only on June's cases. I e-mailed them telling them my frustration. I feel I'm being abused all over again because of the treatment from Caranua. All I want is a normal, happy life with my past healed.

Sadly, Keith is not the only one to have met with this treatment. My office was contacted by a woman last year who had a similar story.

She sent us her correspondence from the start of May 2015. She was told that her case would be processed in September of that year. She waited patiently until January 2016 when she was told that she could not be given a timeframe. She wrote again in August 2016 when a different administrator told her that Caranua could not state when it would be dealt with. When my office asked it to give her a clear answer, we were told that the application would not be processed until mid-2017. These are the delays about which we are talking. It is an unacceptable run-around. One of the reasons given for the length of time being taken was that Caranua was dealing with first-time applicants, but Keith is a first-time applicant and his case has not been dealt with.

The decision to prioritise new applicants was taken without consultation with the survivor groups. Many applicants were unaware of it. They received a letter pointing out that they had already received significant support from Caranua since first applying and that it was delighted to have been able to respond to their needs and hoped they would continue to enjoy the benefits but that it considered their applications to be completed. Some 1,000 of these letters were sent. People were told by telephone that they had reached the cut-off point, that others were in front of them and that Caranua's quota had been reached. Caranua does not have discretion over which applications it processes.

The appeals officer's report questions this approach. He wrote:

While I can understand Caranua's desire to ensure that the Fund is distributed as widely as possible among eligible applicants, it is obliged to do this in a manner which is consistent with its statutory remit as provided for in the Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Act 2012. The essence of Caranua's statutory remit is to assess individual applications for approved services by reference to the provisions of the Act and published criteria and in the case of unsuccessful applicants, to inform them of the reasons why their application was unsuccessful and how they can go about lodging an appeal.

Caranua has failed appallingly and breached its statutory remit by using a prioritisation scheme that it had no legal right to introduce. Other Deputies have made strong points about the concerns expressed by the appeals officer and everyone else. I was glad to hear them being echoed by the Minister, who is new to his brief.

This situation cannot continue. We cannot undo the damage done to people, but if we are serious when we say we are sorry, we can correct the way in which they are now being treated. That could start tomorrow with a strong communiqué from the Department to the offices of Caranua to the effect that the way in which it has been treating people in forcing them to act like beggars and not giving them clear, accurate and consistent information is not on in this day and age and that those who continue to do so will be held accountable. It is not public service but public disservice, to which no one should be exposed, least of all the people who deserve our help the most.

The Government and Fianna Fáil should have a think about this matter before the vote next week. Their objections can be addressed in progressing the Bill to Committee Stage. If they still believe the numbers issue presents a problem at that point, we can remove it and carry on with the rest of the Bill, but we need to proceed. It is not good enough to say the Government needs more time. It has had more than enough time to deal with the. It has had more time than the Statute Book allows. It is the day of the people concerned. They need justice and some form of assistance for the damage that was done to them. I appeal to Deputies, the Minister in particular, to ensure Caranua will get the message loud and clear that some of its behaviour must stop afflicting the people concerned.

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