Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not accept the Deputy's characterisation of what this Government and previous Governments have done. This Government and the one before it decided to deal with this issue, which has been a scar on our society for many decades and generations. Sadly, institutions such as these existed in other jurisdictions. I refer, for example, to the jurisdiction north of the Border and to those in other parts of Europe and the world.

We are one of the few countries, to my knowledge, that has actually faced up to this past and has at least tried to do something to put things right and put right some of the wrongs of the past. I do not think it is solely a matter of money. There is lots being done that goes well beyond financial redress. We estimate that the cost to the taxpayer will be €800 million, which is €800 million that could otherwise be spent meeting the needs of today or trying to build a better future but we have decided that, because of the wrongs that were done in the past, this is an appropriate amount of money to spend trying to put right the wrongs of the past, at least in some way. If we were only interested in cost containment, we would have left these matters to the courts. That is something we did not want to do. We wanted to put a redress scheme in place and not require anyone to have to go to court or prove their case. We thought that would be cruel. That is why we decided to have a non-adversarial scheme of this nature, notwithstanding the cost.

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