Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate Deputy Connolly on tabling this motion. It is important that we try to right some of the wrongs within the Caranua organisation.

We have a problem with the truth in this country, but we also have a problem with addressing the truth once it has been revealed. That is obvious in the way we deal with victims of abuse, in this case those who suffered gravely under religious institutions. From the outset, the Government's attempt to take responsibility for the abuse suffered by victims of institutions was woeful. The work carried out by Caranua, established under the Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Act 2012, has not only failed to deliver for survivors of abuse but has been the source of even more pain and abuse for them. Among the legitimate complaints made against the organisation, victims have experienced disrespectful and poor treatment. Of the total, 61% found their experiences with the organisation to be extremely negative while 21% had a negative experience. This faceless body has made people feel that the State has abandoned them yet again and left them to pick up the pieces of the past while trying desperately to defend their cases for retribution. These experiences resulted from the fact that so little attention was paid to the establishment of the organisation and how it could best represent and address victims of institutional abuse.

There was a litany of Government failures in the establishment of Caranua. For example, an inadequate strategic plan has resulted in progressive deterioration of the services over time. There is now a waiting time of more than seven months before new applicants to the scheme are allocated advisers. There have been cases where some applicants have had their applications rejected or put on hold for indefinite periods, many for more than two years. Applicants have had to go to court to force Caranua to make decisions on their cases.

There are no interview facilities, making it difficult for survivors to present their cases. Many survivors have poor levels of literacy, are older and are not computer literate. When interviews are carried out, some last for longer than three hours with no attention paid to preserving applicants' privacy and confidentiality.

Caranua's response to potential minor levels of fraud is an overreaction similarly seen in the so-called welfare cheats campaign of the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Varadkar. It compromises the integrity and dignity of all other applicants, as each is held under suspicion and must prove to the organisation that he or she is compliant rather than Caranua showing accountability in its decision making on applications.

It became apparent that Caranua was an organisation hell bent on protecting the funds at the expense of the survivors. From 2015 on, Caranua refused to process outstanding applications. This meant that hundreds of applicants were cut off from the fund overnight. In July 2016, Caranua set the cap amount at €15,000 per applicant, meaning that applicants who legitimately and urgently needed assistance above this limit were refused outright. To add insult to injury, Caranua carried out this action without consulting survivor groups contrary to section 7(2)(c) of the Act and has refused to release a copy of the internal guidelines that it uses when making decisions. We still have not seen the review of Caranua's operations that was due in April 2015.

If I was cynical about this, and sometimes I am, I would think there was a reason behind Caranua's tight grip on access to these funds.

Could it be that a cap was imposed so as to ensure that millions will be left behind by the time Caranua is wound down, which could then be diverted to the national children's hospital? Given the apathy presented by the Government towards the needs of survivors so far, I think this is likely to be the reason. However, it is completely hypocritical given the amount of funds put towards the salaries of agency staff. More than €2 million was spent on agency staff after the Government only appointed ten people to divide the €110 million between tens of thousands of victims. According to documents supplied to the Committee of Public Accounts, Caranua also gave €94,000 from compensation paid by religious congregations to a counselling service run by the Catholic Church and unilaterally changed the terms under which people could apply for that funding. It will also spend over €10,000 a year from the fund on parking spaces for its staff.

Deputies across the House have been in contact with a number of survivors and know all too well of the experience of elderly survivors with severe health problems being obliged to validate past abuse in front of the faceless body that is Caranua, only to be treated with contempt and suspicion. This body has not become the needs-based organisation it was set up to be and has in fact compounded the already negative experience of survivors in a country that took nearly a century to accept responsibility for the abuse incurred by them. I want to end on what a survivor said to me recently, when he wrote to my office. He asked me to ask the Government today in the Dáil: why is it provided for some but not for all?

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