Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the motion proposed by my colleague, Deputy Catherine Connolly. I am glad that Independents 4 Change and other Deputies are supporting it. The motion should probably have come sooner. When these matters were being debated in 2012, there was disagreement about how the €110 million should be utilised to support survivors who were subjected to abuse over the years in State and religious institutions. There was a suggestion that the money should be administered directly to people rather than setting up a body that creates administration costs and that sets down criteria and makes people go through processes. It was argued that it would have been much better just to pay the survivors directly out of that fund. Deputy Barry has raised some of these issues. However, the Government's view in its wisdom was that Caranua should be set up.

About three people have come to me over recent years because of difficulties accessing services through Caranua. While we supported them as much as we could, we were never really able to get to the bottom of it. I spoke today to Carmel McDonnell-Byrne, the director of the Aislinn Education and Support Centre Dublin and herself a survivor of institutional abuse. She said that people coming to her are traumatised by the process of applying for and accessing services, explaining about themselves, why they needed the services and so on, only to be told that they could not access them. I also want to mention Fionna Fox, a solicitor and advocate for survivors since 2015. She originally worked for the Aislinn centre. Everyone should read the report she wrote on survivors' dealings with Caranua.

From 2015, Caranua refused to process outstanding applications and overnight hundreds of applicants were cut off from the fund. This policy is still in force. Caranua had no legal right to authorise the board to refuse to process applications from eligible applicants. Certain applications are being put on indefinite hold due to the prioritisation policy. The board does not have the authority to refuse to process applications from eligible applicants as its primary function is to accept, process and determine applications by applying the criteria set out in the guidelines. This is a clear example of Caranua exercising its discretion in an unlawful manner. In respect of the cap, no reasons were given for the setting of the limit at €15,000, nor was any more information provided as to the reasons for the internal audits concerned.

It is not clear if the internal auditor had read the legislation governing the operation of the scheme. Otherwise, the auditor might not have made the recommendations that defeat the primary objective of the scheme and that are ultra vires.

It is understood that Caranua commissioned an actuarial report that placed the likely number of eligible survivors who are still alive at closer to 7,000 rather than 15,000. The number of applicants to the fund has now reached 5,500. Only 545 applied in 2016. No limit is allowed in the Act even if a limit were to be considered necessary. However, given the slowdown in awards and the deadline in the number of new applicants, it is not understood why this policy is being implemented aside from a general concern that the money would run out. This fact was known since the inception of the scheme. In a nutshell, Ms Fox has pointed out that once the money runs out, the scheme will close. That is a fact.

A total of €55 million has been handed out already. A total of €5 million has gone on administration costs, contracts and so on. Will the Minister confirm whether he cleared the contract with Mazars and other private contractors as well as the rent? That happened last March. We need clarification on that.

A key point in our motion is that there needs to be face-to-face contact. I note that the Minister referred to face-to-face engagement but he referred to a greater level of face-to-face engagement. We are saying there has to be face-to-face engagement. There is no other way around this.

I hope Members will support the motion. It is important that our motion goes through because it really deals with the issue.

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