The Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn T.D., today welcomed the publication of Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Bill which provides for the establishment of a Statutory Fund to support the needs of survivors of residential institutional child abuse.
The Minister said: “15,000 former residents are expected to be eligible to apply for support from the Fund and every effort is being made to minimise the administration involved.”
“Some former residents advocate a simple distribution of the available money. However, I believe that the Fund should target resources at services to support former residents’ needs, such as counselling, psychological support services and mental health services, health and personal social services, educational services and housing services.”
While the Residential Institutions Redress Board provides financial compensation to those who suffered abuse while resident in the institutions, the new Statutory Fund will focus on meeting specified needs that many survivors have as they struggle with the effects of abuse that may have taken place many years ago.
The Fund will be financed from the cash contributions, of up to €110 million, offered by the religious congregations. To date, contributions of €21.05 million have been received from the congregations towards the Fund.
Minister Quinn said: “The Government believes that the costs of the response to residential abuse should be shared on a 50:50 basis, between the taxpayer and those responsible for managing the institutions where horrendous child abuse took place.”
“I am continuing to pursue the 50:50 division with the management bodies involved and have proposed the transfer of school infrastructure to the State for the benefit of the taxpayer as one mechanism to allow those involved the opportunity to shoulder their share of the costs.”
“It is my hope that this new Fund will provide ongoing support to those who suffered as children in residential care in State supervised institutions. We have let these people down in the past. I am determined that we will not fail them again. I intend to proceed as quickly as possible with the enactment of the legislation so as to establish the Fund at the earliest possible date,” Minister Quinn concluded.
The Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Bill 2012 and the Explanatory Memorandum are available on the Oireachtas website:
http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/bills/2012/2812/b2812d.pdf
Notes for Editors:
Those who are eligible to apply for assistance from the Fund are those former residents who received awards from the Residential Institutions Redress Board or who received an award or settlement in court proceedings and who would otherwise have received an award from the Redress Board. It is expected that some 15,000 former residents will successfully complete the redress process. As outlined in its newsletter of 23rd December, 2011, the Redress Board had made 13,909 awards and had a further 546 applications and 1,492 late submissions to consider.
The Bill provides that the Fund can respond to applications from former residents by making arrangements with persons, whether resident in the State or elsewhere, for the provision of approved service to support the needs of former residents and by paying grants to assist former residents to avail of those approved services.
The Bill provides for the Fund to be operated by a Board which will comprise 9 members, including four former residents of the scheduled institutions. The Fund will consult with those affected by the performance of it services as it considers appropriate and it will review the effectiveness of such approved services in meeting the needs of former residents. As the administration costs will be met from the congregations’ contributions, every effort is being made to simplify the administration of the Fund and specific provision is included to allow the Residential Institutions Redress Board transfer details of its awardees, which will facilitate the Fund to determine eligibility in individual cases.
Contributions of up to €110 million, essentially the cash element of the offers made in the aftermath of the publication of the Ryan Report, by the religious congregations who were party to the 2002 Indemnity Agreement, will be available to the Statutory Fund. To date, contributions of €21.05m have been received towards the Fund. These and the remaining contributions to be received will be invested in an investment account to be established by the National Treasury Management Agency.
The Bill provides for the charitable status of contributions from those who ran the scheduled institutions.
The Bill provides for the dissolution of the Education Finance Board and the transfer of its functions in relation to remaining moneys available to the new Fund. The Bill also amends the Residential Institutions Redress Act, 2002 to allow the Redress Board to strike out applications where the applicant fails to comply with a direction of the Redress Board.