Redress board ‘less costly than courts’

THE cost of compensating victims of abuse in religious institutions would have been far higher than the present estimate of €650 million if the cases had been allowed to go to court, a TD said yesterday.

Rather than being processed through the courts, compensation is being awarded by the Residential Institutions Redress Board.

Thus far, €156.3m in compensation has been awarded to abuse victims by the redress board. Out of the 4,725 cases before the board, 2,017 have so far resulted in awards, with claims averaging €77,500.

At the moment, around 50 claims are being made every week, and the board is going to accept applications until December 2005.

Fianna Fáil TD John Dennehy pointed out at the Dáil Public Accounts Committee that if the scheme had not been established and all these cases had gone to court, the overall costs would have been far higher.

Based upon three cases that went through the courts, the costs could have been over €200,000 per case, while the average cost of claims going through the redress board is €93,000, the Cork South-Central TD said.

“The money being spent is going to the people who deserve it who were abused and not to the lawyers,” Deputy Dennehy added.

His namesake, the Department of Education general secretary John Dennehy is sticking to his estimate that the final cost will be less than €650m. He also pointed out that the conflicting estimate of the Comptroller and Auditor General John Purcell had dropped from €1.04 billion to €828m.

“I believe that this reduction in the projected cost by the C&AG illustrates how difficult it is to put an accurate figure on what the eventual outcome will be,” he said.

Irrespective of the final cost, Mr Dennehy said there is no question of reopening the negotiations with the religious orders in relation to the indemnity, which capped the contribution from the congregations at €128m.

The property aspect of this contribution has resulted in €71.2m of land and buildings being transferred to State ownership, he said.

In recent weeks, another 13 religious institutions have been added to the scheme but the Department of Education feels this will result in less than 100 additional abuse victims coming forward.

The compensation scheme for victims of abuse in religious institutions is set to be extended to another group of non-religious residential homes.

According to Mr Dennehy, 11 ‘Mrs Smillie’s Homes’ may be added as the State had a regulatory or inspection function in these institutions and the Department is in touch with the ‘Mrs Smillie’s Homes Trust’.

“If they are to be included there would be a contribution to be made,” said Mr Dennehy.

Also yesterday, Attorney General’s Office director general Finola Flanagan defended her office’s refusal to appear before the Dáil Public Accounts Committee to discuss the legal advice it gave to the Department of Education in the negotiations of the indemnity deal with the religious congregations.