Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 13 April 2017

Public Accounts Committee

Special Report No. 96 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Child Abuse Inquiry and Redress

9:00 am

Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

They signed up to and are seeing through the indemnity agreement. I think the debate in society on the publication of the Ryan report and the engagement with the orders, led by the Taoiseach, led to a huge amount more being offered by the orders.

On the attitude of the orders to be willing to offer more on a voluntary basis, while it is not anywhere near 50:50 and it looks like an insignificant amount in the context of what is not there, that is not to say that it is not a significant amount as opposed to if they were not giving that much at all. That is what I am trying to say. Yes, there was a mindset impact on everybody in Irish society at that time. That included the orders.