Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This is another Caranua appeals officer's annual report and another crushing exposé of the severe dysfunction in an organisation which was set up supposedly to administer a fund for the survivors of institutional abuse and which has, in and of itself, become a vehicle for causing further distress to people who applied for supports such as healthcare and house improvements. It is a system which has been revealed yet again to be totally arbitrary, inconsistent and bureaucratic when it could involve a simple application form. It has been adversarial, with a lack of empathy and sympathy being shown.

I congratulate the Minister, Deputy McHugh, on his new job but he is the fourth Minister for Education and Skills with whom we have had to raise this issue. Year after year the reports point out the patterns and the problems with the administration of the fund and with the way survivors are treated. As Deputy Broughan said, a clear majority of the refusals by Caranua were subsequently upheld on appeal. We have to take into account that they are elderly and sick people and time is not on their side. In almost 40% of the cases, the waiting time for the appeal, which ultimately becomes successful, is more than a year. That is shocking. In addition, the failure on behalf of Caranua to implement the reports of previous appeals officers and to deal with the successful appeals is frightening because cases which were successfully appealed as far back as 2014 are waiting on the services that they applied for almost four years ago.

The question is when this is going to stop and when there will be an end to barriers being put in the way. People have a statutory right to this fund. Today, there are still 2,449 applications in the system awaiting a decision. Are they going to go into the backlog as well? We need a second appeals officer straight away and we need some action on the reports.

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