Mr. Noel Waters:

My colleague, Ms McPhillips has specific knowledge of the criminal injuries compensation board. She was secretary of it at one stage in her career. She might be able to give some more detail. The board is sitting. There have been vacancies on it in recent years but it is now constituted again. More recently, the chairman was appointed a judge so there is a vacancy at chair level. We do not believe that this will impact on its capacity to do its work. It is there and it is sitting.

The Chairman might be aware of the circumstances in which one can make awards, which are independent. It is subject to cash limiting in terms of what it can do. In 2013, there was a large overhang of awards of the order of €7 million that had not been paid for a number of years. These were addressed by way of Supplementary Estimate and were made available to the committee. While some cases still may be outstanding, it did deal with-----