Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 27 June 2018
124. Deputy Willie O'Dea asked the Minister for Education and Skills if the survivors of the redress board undergo forensic style examinations in order to be believed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28253/18]
View answerI assume the Deputy means survivors of children’s residential institutional abuse who applied to the Redress Board, not survivors of the Redress Board. The Residential Institutions Redress Board was established in late 2002 to make fair and reasonable awards to persons who, as children, were abused while resident in any of 139 specified institutions. Awards were made following applications from survivors who provided evidence of having been in a specified institution and evidence also of injury arising out of abuse suffered while in residence. The amount of an award was determined by reference to the Board’s assessment of the severity of the abuse and the consequential injury. A Residential Institutions Review Committee was set up to review decisions and awards made by the Redress Board.
Redress schemes offer victims a potentially faster and less onerous justice process. This is acknowledged in the Comptroller and Auditor General’s special report 96 on the Cost of Child Abuse Inquiry and Redress which states that ‘The setting up of a redress scheme following the work of the Commission (to Inquire into Child Abuse) provided reparation to those who had suffered abuse in the institutions. Without such a scheme, civil litigation cases taken by former residents through the courts system could have resulted in substantially higher legal costs and could have led to a backlog of cases for many years as a result.’
The purpose of the Redress Board as established by the Oireachtas under the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002, was to make awards to the survivors of abuse. The statutory functions of the board as set out in section 5 of that Act include a requirement to “ensure in so far as is practicable, that hearings are conducted as informally as possible having regard to all the circumstances. The “forensic style examination” referred to in the Deputy’s question would clearly be at variance with this provision.
