Dan Neville
Ceist:454 Mr. Neville asked the Minister for Education and Science if he will reconsider the Government's decision to exclude day school pupils who were victims of child abuse from the proposed compensation. [20216/01]
Written Answers. - Child Abuse Victims.
In deciding to establish a compensation scheme for survivors of abuse, the Government decided it should be directed at those persons who as children were abused in institutions in which they were resident and for which the State had significant regulatory or supervisory responsibility. Accordingly, section 2 of the Residential Institutions Redress Bill provides that institutions for the purposes of the Bill includes industrial school, reformatory school, orphanage or children's home in which children were resident and in respect of which a public body had responsibilities relating to inspection or regulation. The basis for this decision is that the children concerned were separated from their parents and therefore did not have the care and protection which children in the care of their parents enjoy. They relied to a significant extent on public bodies to protect them and it is now all too clear that notwithstanding that duty children were abused. These considerations do not apply to children who were resident with their families while at school and so the Government's decision to set up a compensation body does not extend to them.