Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The action plan the Government brought forward in response to the commission's report is directed at all survivors, irrespective of the time they spent in an institution. There are various elements to that action plan. The institutional payment scheme is one important element, but it is not the sole element in terms of the Government's response. I outlined in my earlier response to Deputy Canney the universal elements of the action plan.

I agree with Deputy Murnane O'Connor. I understand the concern among survivors in terms of being able to make their applications. We have designed the legislation so that some of those survivors who are older or ill will be able to be prioritised. This is going to be a big scheme to which 34,000 people will be applying.

We know that when the birth information system was set up within Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland, we did not have enough infrastructure from day one, and that caused delays. We want to avoid that in this situation, which is why we have been bringing on staff, updating the necessary IT infrastructure and, again coming from the recommendations of committee on which Deputies Murnane O'Connor and Funchion sat, making sure there is trauma-informed training for the staff in appreciation of the very difficult situations that many of the people who will be applying to the scheme underwent in these institutions. We hope to have the scheme open for applications in quarter 1 of next year.

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