Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

This is one of the suggestions put forward by the Munster survivors group which I considered to be practical. It is a pity the legislation cannot be used in that way. One of the major criticisms of some of the groups about the redress process up to now is about how to get the message out. They are saying the same about this scheme. It is probably a smaller cohort but one of my major concerns is that it will compound the hurt if people who went through the courts or the redress process will not be informed. We know from experience that part of the difficulty is that many of the survivors of these horrible places have literacy problems, and the issue is to get around that. I considered this a practical way of doing it. If it cannot be done, we will have to consider legislation on it in the future.

People are also saying that they feel sidelined by the process. I accept that the Minister met with a number of groups. Who were the groups the Minister's officials met? Many of the people who went through this process are not involved in groups and part of the problem is how to take their views on board. We need some form of outreach in that regard.

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