Mr. Peter Tyndall:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak about the report. Members have had the opportunity to read the report and the opening statement and I do not propose to read that verbatim. I will highlight a couple of key points.

This investigation was of the administration of the restorative justice scheme. The comments we make are on that administration. I want to make clear that they are not intended as a criticism of particular individuals and particularly those responsible for the day to day administration of the scheme on the front line. That is not the purpose of the report. We looked at three particular points. The first was admission to the scheme and criteria for such admission. The investigation found there was too narrow an interpretation given to the eligibility criterion, which completely ignored the practical reality of the daily life of the women who were at that time working in the laundries that were part of the scheme and living in the convents in which those laundries were located. We are talking about women who went down the same stairs every day with women who accessed the scheme and in some instances slept in the next room to women who had access to the scheme. They worked in the laundries that are part of the scheme. We have been clear from the outset that we were not seeking to extend the institutions covered by the scheme but we were saying the criteria being used to determine whether the women concerned were admitted to and worked in those laundries were being interpreted too narrowly. That is the first point.

There is a second point related to that which I will pick up. It is to do with the Residential Institutions Redress Board. The Department has consistently argued the Residential Institutions Redress Board provided access to redress for some of the women we are talking about.

I wish to make several points about that. The first point is that it is possible to distinguish between the wrongs that were intended to be covered by the Residential Institutions Redress Board and those covered by this scheme. They were not intended to provide redress for the same things. The judge considering the issue in the High Court said that though it might be difficult to distinguish, it was still possible to do so.

A second point is important. That scheme is closed and some of these women had no access to it. The fact is that to avoid some people supposedly being compensated twice for the same wrong, some people are being denied any compensation. That cannot be right.

I am keen to raise some issues around how the length of time women spent in the laundries was calculated. We believe that too much reliance was placed on the records of the convents. There was insufficient interrogation of all the available evidence, for example, social security records, which would have enabled a different conclusion to be reached. The Department has accepted that recommendation and is working on it.

The third issue we examined was capacity. Some women are entitled to access the scheme and there is no dispute about their entitlement but they do not have the capacity to enter into the necessary agreements that form part of the process of giving redress. As a consequence, some of these women have not received redress. Committee members will have seen that the number of women in that circumstance has reduced over time. Regrettably, part of that reduction is because women have died before gaining access to the scheme. We highlighted this but no work had been done prior to beginning our investigation. We have now recommended, reluctantly, that the best way to address this is to ensure those women are made wards of court. It is not ideal – we are the first to accept that – but we can see no other way of ensuring that these women receive access to redress. For that to happen there needs to be a proactive programme from the Department. It is not sufficient to make telephone calls to the Office of Wards of Court. There needs to be active engagement with the women's carers. Where they are not in a position to move forward supports need to be put in place to ensure the ward of court process can be activated.

When it comes down to it, I am before the committee today in unusual circumstances. I have been an ombudsman for ten years, four of which I have spent in Ireland and six years elsewhere previously. During that time I have never reached the point where a Department has, prior to the publication of a report, absolutely and categorically refused to engage with the process around accepting and implementing the recommendations. I am very disappointed by that.

Since the report was issued, the Minister has essentially agreed to the implementation of three of the recommendations in the Dáil. However, as I have said, in respect of the wards of court process we believe implementation is still not proceeding vigorously enough. Nonetheless, I am pleased that the length of stay and all evidence will now be considered. Moreover, I am pleased that Government as a whole will consider a process for designing future redress schemes to avoid the problems we encountered when we looked at the administration of this scheme. The fact remains that, as of my appearance before the committee today, the Government has still not formally agreed to implement this recommendation.

I wish to make two points in that regard. First, we have been told that €25.7 million has been spent - the Minister said that. I believe the figure has now risen to €27 million. The upper estimate for the scheme at the point it was developed was €54 million. The nature of the wrong done to these women needs to be addressed regardless of the cost. Even at that, the issue arises.

My second point relates to the prohibition on dual funding inserted in the scheme. It was not inserted to the scheme that went before Government. It was put in as an administrative footnote. We believe that the scheme should not have had this prohibition as the two redress arrangements were for different wrongs. We now want to see those women receive the compensation belatedly that they should have received.

Women continue to contact the staff in my office. I will summarise the point they make to us. They say that they worked in those laundries, they washed the soiled sheets of the prisoners in Mountjoy Prison and the women who worked alongside them have received redress. They ask why they have been excluded.