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

If there are specific instances that the Deputy wants to draw to my attention - many Deputies have been involved in this area - I will be happy to examine them, as I am always happy to do. We want to make this scheme work as quickly as possible.

The scheme has been up and running for seven months now.

Some 1,800 people have already received payments and, as I said, over €27 million has already been paid out to applicants within seven months of the establishment of the scheme. The Deputy is right that there have been 5,000 applications so far. We made a decision to pace the public information campaign and to put it out piece by piece, recognising that there may be some people who are uncomfortable about applying initially. We want to ensure that awareness gets out there and that the awareness is international because we recognise there is a high likelihood that a substantial number of the potential beneficiaries of the scheme do not live in Ireland and that following their time in these institutions, they moved to other jurisdictions. We are working closely with embassies and Irish groups in other countries to consider how best to communicate the information.

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