Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In the light of the Government decision to implement the scheme recommended by Judge Quirke, my Department established a dedicated unit of nine officers whose sole task is to assist in the implementation of the scheme. A total of 754 applications have been received to date and 357 applicants have received their lump sum payment so far. The cost is €12.8 million to date. I may have said €10 million earlier. A further 106 formal offers have been made and letters of provisional assessment on the length of stay in a relevant institution have issued to an additional 35 applicants.

The remaining cases require further investigation. There is a problem. If the relevant religious congregation has no clear record, as is often the case, my officials will carry out a thorough examination to check whatever records are available to support the claim. Applicants consented to the provision of personal information to my Department by any Department, health or educational institution and the religious congregations for the purpose of verifying their claim. That work is under way and huge support has been offered to individual applicants where no records are available. Every effort is being made to work with other Departments to check where the possibility of a record exists. The applicants have given permission to gather that information together and that will help in order that corroborative information can be used to verify that the applicant was in an institution for a given period.

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