Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am acutely aware of the sense of urgency surrounding the establishment of the mother and baby institutions payment scheme and I am focused on delivering that scheme as soon as possible. On Tuesday, I brought the Bill providing for the payment scheme to the Government and obtained approval for its publication and presentation to the Houses later this month.

The scheme will provide financial payments and an enhanced medical card to eligible survivors in acknowledgement of suffering experienced while resident in mother and baby and county home institutions. Recognising the impact that mother and baby institutions had on much of Irish society, the scheme will be one of the largest of its kind in terms of the numbers expected to benefit. Some 34,000 survivors will be eligible for financial payments and 19,000 will be eligible for enhanced medical cards under the scheme. The scheme's overall value will be €800 million. All mothers who spent time in an institution and all children who spent six months or more in an institution will be eligible for a payment, with the amount increasing based on their length of stay. There will be an additional work-related payment for women who were resident in certain institutions for more than three months, while an enhanced medical card will be available to everyone who was resident in a mother and baby or county home institution for six months or more.

Recognising the importance of delivering this scheme for survivors, I hope to bring the Bill through both Houses swiftly. Subject to the legislation being passed and enacted and the administrative structures being established, the scheme will open for applications.

I will discuss two changes of significance in the Bill. We have banded the various payments so that an individual who was in an institution for five years and one month and another individual who was there for five years and 11 months will receive different payments in recognition of the longer time. Importantly, absences from an institution of less than 180 days will be discounted, recognising that those absences were often due to illnesses as a result of the stay in that particular institution.

See this speech in context