I propose to take Questions Nos. 140 and 578 together.
The Residential Institutions Redress Board was established under statute in 2002 to provide financial redress to victims of child abuse in residential institutions in order to assist them in their recovery and enhance the quality of the remainder of their lives.
The Board received 14,541 applications by the 15th of December, 2005, the closing date for receipt of applications. The original term of office of the Board was for a period of three years up to December 2005. I have extended that period to December 2007 and will be advised by the Board whether it will be necessary to provide a further extension at that time.
As at end September 2006, the Board had made 6,639 awards totalling €461 million and had 7,902 applications remaining to be dealt with. Total costs incurred by the Board at this date, including €62 million legal costs, was €544 million. The average award to date is approximately €70,000 and awards have varied between zero and €300,000.
In view of the higher than anticipated number of applications to the Redress Board, the Department included a revised contingency provision of up to €1.3 billion for the total liability potentially arising from the scheme in the notes to the 2005 Appropriation Accounts. This was based on total applications of 14,541, an average award of €76,000 at end 2005 and legal and administration costs of approximately 20% of awards. Recent trends in awards made by the Board would suggest that the average award is decreasing though some 7,900 applications remain. While earlier Department estimates of the total cost of the scheme were lower than the current estimate, the redress scheme is without precedent and nobody could have predicted with certainty how many applications there would be.
In making any assessment of cost, one must consider that if the scheme had not been introduced the State in all likelihood would have been engaged in civil court actions which would have been protracted and traumatic for the victims and would have resulted in the State incurring extensive legal and settlement costs. The Government in establishing the scheme considered it was the just and humane thing to do as the State was responsible for children that were placed in institutions by the courts and other public bodies.
I should add that the decision to establish the redress scheme was made regardless of whether the religious congregations who managed the institutions would contribute to the cost of the scheme. Nevertheless, it was considered desirable that the congregations should make a meaningful contribution towards the redress of past child abuse and accordingly the Government entered into negotiations with the congregations which culminated in agreement being reached in June 2002 on an aggregate contribution by the congregations of €128 million. At the beginning of the negotiations, the Department of Finance had recommended that the negotiating team should strive for a 50% contribution towards the redress scheme. However, it was subsequently recognised that this was not achievable and the Department of Finance was satisfied with the contribution of €128 million achieved.
