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

I thank the Senator for his kind comments, for raising this important issue, and for giving me the opportunity to come to the House today to provide an update on the mother and baby institutions payment scheme. The provision of a form of enhanced medical card to survivors through the mother and baby institutions payments scheme will require the establishment of legislative and administrative structures to provide statutory access to the relevant health services, assess eligibility and carefully manage and share the relevant personal data with the HSE in respect of the issuing of these cards.

Given the scale and significance of the approved proposals for the mother and baby institutions payment scheme, an integrated piece of legislation is being prepared to encompass both aspects of the scheme, that is, the financial payments and the enhanced medical cards of which the Senator spoke. This approach will make the scheme much more user-friendly as survivors will only have to make one application to be considered for both aspects of the scheme. Last month, I secured Government approval for the heads of a Bill for the mother and baby institutional payments scheme and the referral of the heads of the Bill to the Office of Parliamentary Counsel for drafting. I sought priority drafting for the Bill to ensure it can be introduced to the Houses of the Oireachtas as soon as possible.

I have also referred the draft heads of the Bill to the Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth for pre-legislative scrutiny. I have requested its assistance in meeting the urgent need to deliver the scheme for survivors as soon as possible. Like the Senator, I thank the committee for its speedy response in that regard as it quickly launched a public consultation on the general scheme of the Bill. As the Senator mentioned, the deadline for that is Friday, 6 May. My officials and I look forward to engaging with the committee during the pre-legislative scrutiny process.

Once the legislation has been passed by the Oireachtas and the administrative infrastructure required to deliver the scheme has been established, the scheme will open for applications for financial awards and enhanced medical cards. It is my hope we can get this Bill passed in the autumn term and open the scheme for initial applications in late 2022. That is the timeline I am operating towards.

A person will be eligible for an enhanced medical card if he or she was resident in a relevant institution for six months or more. The card will provide access to the same suite of services offered to those who hold the Magdalen restorative justice ex gratiascheme medical card. For those eligible applicants who live outside of Ireland, they will have the choice of accepting a once-off health support payment of €3,000 instead of the medical card, if they wish. This will be a recognition of, and a contribution towards, their individual health needs.While acknowledging that healthcare costs can vary significantly between different people and jurisdictions, a payment of €3,000 would represent a practical measure of acknowledgement for those living overseas who choose not to avail of the enhanced medical card. If eligible people prefer to take the medical card instead of the once-off health support payment, this would mean that when they are visiting Ireland, or if they were ever to move back here, they would be able to avail of our health services using this enhanced medical card.

The Senator spoke about other supports and it is important to note that beyond the institutional payments scheme, and as part of the broader action plan in response to the report of the commission, counselling support has been made available to all survivors since before the publication of the commission’s final report. It is being provided through the national counselling service which has been strengthened with additional investment and an expanded out-of-hours service. It is important to say as well that counselling is available free of charge and survivors of institutions are entitled to priority access to that free counselling service.

Additionally, the Department of Health, in partnership with the HSE, is working on establishing a patient liaison advocacy service. When up and running, that service will have a dedicated team that can provide bespoke information and supports to survivors to assist them in accessing the health services they may need. The Department of Health is also working with the Health Research Board on a research project to identify the further health needs of survivors. This research will help to further inform future health policy and service responses.