17 April, 2012 – Minister Quinn welcomes the publication of Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Bill.
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:
