Written answers
Wednesday, 8 May 2024
Department of Education and Skills
Residential Institutions
Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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195. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if, in belated recognition of the second interim report (section 5.14) and the final report (recommendations, page 5) as emphatic recommendations of the MBHCI, that former residents of the Westbank Orphanage in Greystones, County Wicklow, be included in the residential institutions redress scheme as an urgent matter of justice, fairness and healing for those affected; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20376/24]
Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002 established the Residential Institutions Redress Board to make financial awards to people who, as children, were resident in specified institutions and who had injuries consistent with alleged abuse suffered while resident in those institutions.
The Schedule to the 2002 Act specified 123 institutions and the Act allowed for the inclusion of other specified institutions in which children were resident and in respect of which a public body had an inspection or regulatory function. In response to requests to include specific institutions, two Orders were made, in November 2004 and July 2005, specifying 16 additional institutions bringing the total number of scheduled institutions to 139.
Following publication of the Ryan Report in May 2009, there was a range of requests for the Redress Scheme to be further extended. The then Government decided against extending the Redress Scheme, which had been open for almost nine years, and the Residential Institutions Redress (Amendment) Act 2011 imposed a final deadline of 17 September 2011.
The Scheme has been closed since that time and it is not therefore possible to include further institutions within the Scheme.
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