Civil servants 'let religious off hook' on abuse payouts

Thursday March 10th 2005

THE State entered into the negotiations leading to the setting up of the child abuse compensation board based on a gross underestimate of what the scheme would cost, and without knowing what religious orders could pay into it, a new Dail report has found.

The report by the Dail's Public Accounts Committee pins the blame for this on civil servants in both the Department of Education and the Department of Finance who helped to lay down the negotiating parameters.

According to one estimate, the final cost of payouts by the Residential Institutions Redress Board could be over ?800m, with the 18 religious orders that ran most of the institutions paying just ?128m in property and cash towards it.

The investigation into the redress deal was launched as a result of concerns that the religious orders have not contributed enough towards it, that they were granted an indemnity against court claims too readily, and that theAttorney General was not properly involved in the negotiations.

Speaking at the report's launch yesterday, PAC members refused to be drawn on whether the ?128m payment was enough, saying that this was for the public to decide.

However, PAC chairman, Fine Gael's Michael Noonan, said his view was that the Department of Education "got tied into a negotiating mandate without sufficient knowledge of the relevant data".

He said that the State's initial estimate in mid-2001 that the final cost of the redress scheme would be ?254m was based on an estimate of the number of abuse cases that would go to court.

However, he pointed out that it would have been better if civil servants had based their estimate on the experience of similar compensation schemes overseas where the numbers eventually making claims was much higher than originally estimated.

He also suggested that civil servants could have contacted law firms representing victims to find out how many they thought would eventually lodge applications for compensation with the redress board.

If they had done this, Mr Noonan said, the original estimate might have been much closer to the likely final figure.

Had this happened, the State might have held out for a higher contribution from the religious orders. The orders, however, insist that they could not contribute more than they did.

Regarding the involvement of the Office of Attorney General in the negotiations, the PAC says that at the outset the Office agreed with the offer of an indemnity, but that later it appeared not to knowthe exact nature of the indemnity.

Representatives of the Attorney General were not involved at every stage of the negotiations, but the PAC report says this is not unusual.

However, it recommends that in the future clear rules should be laid down for the involvement of the Office of Attorney General in complex legal negotiations.

The report also criticises the State's negotiating team for not being equal to the team of the religious orders and recommends that in the future civil servants involved in such negotiations be given bettertraining.

Mr Noonan rejected suggestions that the agreement amounted to "a secret deal". He said it was agreed by the Cabinet, and the legislation setting up the redressboard was debated by the Oireachtas.

He also said it was not relevant that the redress board has been established in such a way as to make it very easy for former residents of institutions to claim compensation.

"All parties in the Dail agreed with the original Act which set out the definition of abuse.

"It's not surprising that everyone who applies gets an award."

The average award paid out to date by the board to 2,555 claimants is ?78,000. A further 3,000 applications are before the board with several thousand more expected.

For the purposes of making a claim, abuse can be sexual, physical or emotional in nature. Neglect is also included as a form of abuse.

David Quinn
Social Affairs Correspondent

? Irish Independent