Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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103. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills further to Parliamentary Question No. 131 of 25 October 2017, if his attention has been drawn to the 2016 report of the appeals officer of Caranua; if so, the differences in the numbers of appeals granted by the former appeals officer compared with the new appeals officers; if such a difference exists, the reason therefore; his plans to review the decisions of the former appeals officer to ensure that those decisions were fair and reasonable in all circumstances; the date on which the report will be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52203/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The 2016 annual report of the outgoing independent appeals officer appointed to consider appeals against decisions of Caranua, the Residential Institutions Statutory Fund, covering the period from February 2016 to April 2017, was submitted to me and subsequently laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas on 10 November in fulfilment of the requirement laid down in section 21 of the Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Act 2012. The new appeals officers appointed by me in May 2017 will, in due course, provide me with an annual report covering their first year’s work. 

The appeals officers are entirely independent in the performance of their functions under the 2012 Act. Persons who are dissatisfied with decisions of an appeals officer may appeal that decision to the High Court on a point of law. There is no power available to me which would enable me to reopen closed appeals cases and I have no plans to do so.