Mr. Jimmy Martin:

To answer the Deputy's question, no, there are not many cases like that. When we started off in this, we were concerned that while some of the institutions have good, comprehensive records, some have no records at all. In practice, we have built up a certain level of expertise within the Department. We do not rely on institutional records alone. We check out school records, social welfare records and tax records to see whether somebody was active. There are very few cases of disputes about whether a person was in an institution. If a person was in an institution with records, and the record shows that a person went in and went out, we tend to rely on those records, but we double-check that against other evidence. This would include whether the person was making social payments, which suggest he or she was working, and whether there is a record of the person in another institution - for example, he or she might have been in hospital. Therefore, it is quite rare that somebody would be concerned about not being paid because of a lack of records. Normally the dispute centres around a person having been in an institution which that person regards as a Magdalen laundry, but which is not one covered by the scheme.