Caranua CEO refuses to acknowlege dissatisfaction among abuse survivors

The board of the €111m fund, which is populated by redress funds from the relevant religious organisations, will be officially decommissioned on March 24, 2021. Picture posed by model. File image

The head of institutional abuse fund Caranua has declined to acknowledge that some survivors were dissatisfied with their interaction with the body.

In doing so, chief executive Rachel Downes had done a “disservice to all the good work you might have done”, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has heard.

Caranua was appearing before the PAC ahead of its formal wind down before the end of the year. That wind down is expected to cost €300,000, with legislation to action same expected to come before the Dáil in the new year, while an independent evaluation of Caranua is due to be published in January.

Ms Downes said that of the more than 6,100 survivors who have applied to access the fund, just three remain outstanding, all three of which are “high-cost” and are “under way”.

She said it is her understanding that less than 10 applications are being probed by the fund’s independent appeals officer.

The board of the €111m fund, which is populated by redress funds from the relevant religious organisations, will be officially decommissioned on March 24, 2021, Ms Downes said, with some staff remaining in employment until that point.

She said that of the 6,181 applicants, not all received a payment as some of them “didn’t have needs”, adding that all survivors had been treated fairly.

The PAC’s limitations due to the imposition of a new Dáil rule, known as Standing Order 218, raised its head repeatedly during the hearing, with Ms Downes repeatedly affirming that she was not in a position to discuss named individuals.

Instead, the hearing saw the gathered TDs question the Caranua CEO regarding how the fund had performed in terms of survivors who had been less satisfied with their experience in accessing redress.

“I’m very proud to work with Caranua,” she said. She declined, under repeated questioning from Fianna Fáil TD Paul McAuliffe, to acknowledge that the experience of all survivors had not necessarily been a happy one.

In doing so Mr McAuliffe suggested that Ms Downes was “doing a disservice to all the good work that you might have done”.

She replied that she would be “happy to speak to anyone who might raise the issue with me”.

The same issue had been raised by TD Marc MacSharry earlier in the hearing as to why the body had been unwilling to include “any of the negative cases” in its briefing document for the committee.

Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy pushed the issue stating “we have testimony of people who say they weren’t treated fairly”, and asked could Caranua’s “official record” be amended to reflect that case.

Independent TD Verona Murphy, meanwhile, suggested that the behaviour of Caranua in dismissing one applicant, who told the body via email that they were unhappy with the tiles installed in their home as part of a renovation paid for by the redress fund due to their similarity to those in the institution in which the survivor had resided, amounted to “callousness”.

In its reply to the survivor, the fund, which operates independent of any funding from the State, had said that “all of your needs have been met with regards to Caranua and your application is complete”.

“Everything that is named in that are not the full facts of the case,” Ms Downes replied, adding that “there is more to the case, I’d be happy to discuss with you outside”.

“What is reported to this committee isn’t reflective of the work of Caranua,” Ms Murphy said. “When it isn’t reflected transparently that there was such a level of complaints then we haven’t learned anything from it.”