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Critical redress scheme report delayed

Added on March 3, 2005


Liam Reid
03/03/2005


The D?il Public Accounts Committee (Pac) has delayed publication of a detailed report on the State's redress scheme, to obtain legal advice on the significance of Tuesday's High Court case in which a victim of sexual abuse was awarded ?370,000 compensation. The report was due to have been published today.


A draft of the report, seen by The Irish Times, is highly critical of the way the indemnity and redress deal between the State and religious orders was negotiated.

According to the draft, the committee believes the Department of Education failed to use the data it had in estimating the potential liability of the State for potential compensation claims, and that an "underestimation of the final liability had implications for the negotiating mandate adopted by the State".

But the committee may decide to amend some findings and recommendations if it is advised that Tuesday's case will lead to a significant number of compensation claimants abandoning the redress board to seek potentially higher awards in court.

Tuesday's award to Raymond Noctor (45), of Leinster Crescent, Carlow, for abuse he suffered while a resident at St Joseph's industrial school in Co Kilkenny, was the highest made to a victim of institutional abuse, and was almost ?300,000 more than the average award of ?77,00 made by the Residential Institutions Redress Board.

As part of the redress scheme, the State also negotiated a ?128 million contribution from the 18 religious orders who ran the institutions, in return for an indemnity against current and future compensation cases from former residents.

The 41-page draft Pac report finds that the scheme "must be viewed in light of the very substantial costs that would have been incurred in any event if no such scheme had been established", and that it was a humane way of compensating victims.

It states the Department of Education made "insufficient use" of information available to it on the likely final liability, when establishing a negotiation mandate.

The report also finds that the State negotiating team had no prior knowledge of the orders' ability to pay and should have pressed them for information on their assets.

The report finds that written documentation of meetings between the then minister for education Michael Woods in November 2001 and January 2002 at which the agreement was reached in principle was "not good" while the formal documentation of State policy and progress of negotiations "left a lot to be desired".

The report also suggests that the real value of the contribution was ?78 million, as the ?128 million figure includes ?40 million in property already transferred to public bodies before the deal, along with the cost of counselling services provided by the orders.

The report makes six separate recommendations, including a review of Department of Finance procedures on dealing with potential liabilities for the State.


? The Irish Times

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