Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Question 183: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he or his Department still maintains contact with Justice for the Forgotten; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14695/10]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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From 2003-2008 the Remembrance Commission operated a Scheme of Acknowledgement, Remembrance and Assistance for Victims in this Jurisdiction of the Conflict in Northern Ireland.

Under the Scheme, payments could be made to individuals under various categories such as acknowledgement payments, economic hardship payments and medical expenses payments. The Scheme also contained a provision to enable payments to be paid to groups offering support services to victims of the conflict. Under this element of the Scheme payments were made to Justice for the Forgotten for the purpose of meeting the counselling and other needs of victims or their family members. During the period of operation of the Scheme Justice for the Forgotten received a total of €1.2m of the €1.5m allocated for victim support services and was the only recipient of money under this heading. In addition the organisation had received over €890,000 from the Department of the Taoiseach in the period 2000-2003.

The term of appointment of the Remembrance Commission came to an end on 31 October 2008 and funding under the Scheme ended at that stage. Nevertheless, I took a decision at that time to grant further funding to Justice for the Forgotten totalling €190,300 to enable them to continue to operate while seeking to put alternative funding options in place.

Officials from my Department met with Justice for the Forgotten on a number of occassions and met with them again last June to apprise them of the situation and to confirm that my first priority, as I have stated, is to ensure that those victims who require ongoing medical treatment for injuries sustained in bombings and other incidents arising from the conflict in Northern Ireland will continue to be provided for. I have made special arrangements to have these costs provided by my Department through the Victims of Crime Office.