Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 18 April 2012
343 Deputy Joanna Tuffy asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he will provide details of the amount of funding made available to an organisation (details supplied) since its foundation; the up-to-date position with this organisation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18554/12]
View answer370 Deputy Clare Daly asked the Minister for Education and Skills the amount of money he has made payable to an organisation (details supplied) per annum; the reason these moneys were awarded; the reason accounts were not audited; if previous commitments that this group would be investigated were carried out and the findings of same. [19015/12]
View answer378 Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for Education and Skills the amount of public funds paid to the organisation (details supplied) in each of the past five years; the work in which the organisation engages and the steps taken by the Departments and agencies to monitor this work; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19038/12]
View answer379 Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for Education and Skills if audited accounts for each of the past five years have been submitted to his Department from an organisation (details supplied); the details of any qualification if any on the certificates to these accounts; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19040/12]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 343, 370, 378 and 379 together.
My Department has provided funding to the organisation in question since 2001. Up to the end of 2006, my Department expended a total of €802,802 in relation to this organisation, which expenditure includes the costs of the associated co-ordinator. The annual funding provided over the last five years, from 2007 to 2011, is set out in the attached table. This funding has been provided to the organisation to provide an information and referral service for former residents of Industrial and Reformatory Schools wishing to access the range of services introduced in response to residential institutional abuse, following the then Taoiseach's apology to victims of childhood abuse in 1999. The funding provided by my Department is channelled through the City of Cork VEC and expenditure of these funds is monitored by a co-ordinator engaged by the VEC on behalf of my Department. Expenditure receipts are provided to the co-ordinator along with annual accounts of the organisation. My Department receives details of the receipts and copies of the annual accounts.
As with all survivor groups funded by my Department, this organisation is required to apply to my Department for funding on an annual basis and, in doing so, is required to set out its list of activities in the previous year and the proposed activities for the current year in the context of the provision of an information and referral service to include the numbers of former residents contacting or availing of the service. As Deputies will be aware, this organisation receives the majority of its funding from the Health Service Executive. As advocated by the Comptroller and Auditor General in his Special Report No. 74 of September 2010, my Department liaises with the HSE to ensure a co-ordinated approach to its funding and that no duplication of funding arises.
In the wider context, I previously announced that as responsibility for information for survivors will be taken on by the proposed Statutory Fund, funding of survivor groups by my Department will cease. Accordingly, while my Department is continuing to fund survivor groups pending the establishment of the Fund, Deputies will be aware that the Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Bill, which provides for the establishment of a Statutory Fund to support the needs of survivors of residential institutional child abuse, was published yesterday. The continued funding of groups is being reviewed in this context.
