Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy O'Sullivan for raising this matter. Every Member of the House will share the concern that anybody is sleeping outside Leinster House as a protest on these terrible evenings. It is not easy to resolve the issue, unfortunately. If it had been, it would have been done long ago. A number of people, including myself, spoke to Marie Therese and I explained the situation to her. The Department took the opportunity recently to double check in light of issues raised in the House by way of parliamentary questions, on the Adjournment tonight and on the Order of Business, whether anything had been missed. However, the situation remains that there is no evidence of the State's role in this home and it is therefore not possible to include it in the legislation.

I will set out the background to the case. I thank the Deputy for raising this matter on the Adjournment as it gives me an opportunity to clarify the position. The Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002 provides a statutory scheme of financial redress for persons who, as children, were abused while in residential institutional care. The scheme applies in respect of institutions specified in the Schedule to the Act and the Act allows a three-year period for submission of applications to the board. This three-year period ends this Thursday, 15 December 2005. I again urge potential applicants to the board to ensure their applications are submitted prior to that date. Applications will be accepted up to midnight on 15 December 2005. To date the board has received approximately 12,000 applications and has made approximately 4,500 offers of awards at a cost of €332 million. My Department is making arrangements to extend the terms of office of the members of the board and the review committee for a further period of two years to allow the board to deal with the remaining applications.

Section 4 of the Act provides that the Minister for Education and Science may, by order, insert additional institutions in the Schedule to the Act. This section is quite specific in relation to the type of institutions which can be considered for inclusion. The institution concerned must be an industrial school, a reformatory school, an orphanage, a children's home, a special school for children with a physical or intellectual disability or a hospital providing medical or psychiatric services to people with a physical or mental disability or mental illness. It must also be one in which children were placed and resided and in respect of which a public body had a regulatory or inspection function.

A total of 128 institutions were originally listed on the Schedule as enacted in April 2002. Since enactment of the legislation, my Department has been contacted by individuals and-or solicitors in relation to a large number of institutions not specified in the Schedule. Following consideration of the matter and consultation with the relevant bodies, I signed an order on 9 November 2004 which provided for the inclusion of 13 additional institutions in the Schedule. A further order was made on 1 July 2005, adding three institutions to the Schedule. This demonstrates we were all anxious to ensure that as many of the institutions as possible would be included on the list, in the interests of those who had suffered abuse while living in them.

The redress scheme applies to industrial schools, reformatory schools and other such institutions for children where the State's duty of care arose from the fact that the children were separated from their families and were placed and resident in institutions over which the State had a regulatory or supervisory responsibility. On the two facilities specified in the Deputy's motion I make the follows points.

My Department was requested to place the Regina Coeli hostel on the Schedule of the Act. As hostels do not satisfy the terms of section 4 it is not possible to consider the placement of this facility on the Schedule. When this was explained, a further request was received regarding an institution called the Morning Star mother and baby home at the same address as the Regina Coeli hostel but described as a separate unit from the hostel. Officials from my Department raised the matter with their counterparts at the Department of Health and Children and other relevant bodies. No records were identified to indicate that the State was responsible for this home or unit. The majority of these types of homes were privately operated and not subject to State inspection or regulation. As a consequence, it is not possible to give further consideration to the inclusion of the Morning Star mother and baby home or unit in the Schedule.

The Regina Coeli hostel was established by the Legion of Mary in 1930 to provide shelter for homeless women, with or without children. A person who stayed at the hostel did so on a voluntary basis and usually paid a small fee for the accommodation.

Regarding the Bethany home, my Department has consulted the Department of Health and Children and no records have been identified to indicate that it was responsible for inspecting or regulating the facility. As a consequence, I trust the Deputy will appreciate that it is not open to consider further the placement of either of these facilities on the Schedule as it has not been established in the first instance that a State party was responsible for the care of the residents at these homes.

See this speech in context