Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will bring Senator Boyhan's concern to the attention of the Caranua board that the closing date should not be inflexibly applied. Its intention is to support victims of abuse in residential institutions. Caranua has published this because it recognises that the money is finite so it will have to ensure that it knows as soon as possible the potential new applications that can come on board so it can plan for them with the money that remains. I am sure it will look at that closing date in a flexible way. It is making significant efforts to ensure that overseas networks are used as well as domestic networks to get this information out to people who have been holding out for whatever reason. At this point I should say that 5,000 people have come forward and have been assisted in the fund and there are another couple of thousand applications on hand.