Mr. Michael Fitzpatrick:

The cheques remain legal for six months but we find that some survivors do not cash them and they become outdated. Over a period of six months, many of these cheques are returned to us. Some are returned for reissue and others just become outdated.

We track the cheques that are approaching six months and when they are four months since date of issue, the services team under Ms Dwyer contact the survivors to check that they still intend to use those payments. In as many cases as possible we try to take back the cheques and reissue them in order to give the survivor additional time to utilise them.