Department under fire over abuse claims bill

THE Department of Education will be criticised again in the coming weeks for significantly underestimating the bill for compensating thousands of abuse victims.

When the issue of redressing those abused in industrial and reformatory schools first arose, the department estimated there would be 2,000 cases at a total cost of €254 million.

In fact, the Residential Institutions Redress Board, the body established in 2002 to compensate those abused in State-regulated institutions, had 5,071 cases on its books by Christmas.

The board is receiving applications at the rate of around 50 a week, and a late flurry is expected before its deadline next December.

The average redress board payout to victims to date is €77,917.

It is understood the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will predict in a report to be published shortly that the final bill will be in the region of €830m - some €576m more than the department had first anticipated.

The department can expect to be sharply criticised in the report, three PAC members confirmed yesterday.

The members did not wish to comment publicly as the report has yet to be finalised.

But they said it was clear the department had significantly underestimated just how much the compensation bill would be.

The main focus of the PAC report is the indemnity deal which the religious orders struck with the Government in June 2002.

In return for a contribution of €128m, the orders received indemnity from abuse claims from former residents of institutions which they ran.

The €128m package, which included property, cash payments and the provision of counselling services to victims, was to offset part of the final compensation bill.

The department’s estimation of what that bill would be was therefore a crucial element of the negotiations between the Government and the orders.

The PAC report is not the first time that the department’s estimates have been queried.

In his 2002 annual report, the Comptroller and Auditor General indicated that the final bill could reach €1 billion.

That was subsequently revised in the 2003 annual report, published last year, which suggested the bill would come in somewhere between €608 and €828m.