Child Abuse Inquiry and Redress Scheme Hugely Exceeds Original Cost Estimates

By Cormac McQuinn
Irish Independent
March 9, 2017

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/child-abuse-inquiry-and-redress-scheme-hugely-exceeds-original-cost-estimates-35515871.html

Seamus McCarthy C&AG

THE ˆ1.5bn cost of the the child abuse inquiry and redress scheme has hugely exceeded original estimates, the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) has found.

It was originally forecast that the redress scheme for survivors of institutional child abuse would cost ˆ250m.

That spiraled to an estimated ˆ1.25bn.

A summary of the report states that "government policy is that the congregations who ran the institutions would share equal liability of the ˆ1.52 billion cost of redress i.e. contribute ˆ760 million" and that "Total contributions offered to date are ˆ406 million less than this."

The report found that at the end of 2015 Religious congregations had only paid ˆ192m.

Meanwhile, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse cost an estimated ˆ82m, almost ˆ80m more than the original Department of Education forecast of ˆ2.5m.

The final report of the Commission, known as the Ryan report, was published in May 2009.

The findings are contained in a special report by the Comptroller and Auditory General (C&AG) published this morning.

A statement by the C&AG's office on release of the report said that government policy was to pursue the sharing of the cost of redress on a 50:50 basis with the religious congregations.

This would require the congregations to contribute ˆ760 million.

However, to date the congregations have only offered the equivalent of about 23pc of the overall cost and contributions received to the end of 2015 represent just 13pc of the cost.

The statement notes that an indemnity agreement was signed in 2002 between the State and 18 religious congregations, who agreed to contribute to the costs of redress by transferring property, cash and other resources totaling ˆ128 million.

At the end of 2015, ˆ21m of this had yet to be transferred to the State.

The statement said that following the publication of the Ryan Report in 2009, the congregations offered additional cash and property valued at ˆ353m but that this combined offer was revised to ˆ226m in September 2015. Six years after the publication of the Ryan report, only ˆ85m - 38pc - of the ˆ226 million offer has been received by the State.

That revision occurred after the Christian Brothers withdrew an offer of school playing fields and associated lands valued at ˆ127m.

In relation to the Redress scheme, the C&AG found that by the end of 2015 awards to abuse survivors totaling ˆ970m had been made to 15,579 claimants.

The average award was ˆ62,250 and 85pc were below ˆ100,000.

The highest award made was ˆ300,000.

Legal cost payments of ˆ192.9m approved by the Redress Board to be made to 991 legal firms in respect of 15,345 applications.

Seventeen legal firms were paid between ˆ1m and ˆ5m each and seven firms were paid amounts between ˆ5m and ˆ19m each.

The C&AG statement notes that outside of the redress scheme, other supports have been put in place to assist the former residents of the institutions.

The overall spend on health, housing, educational and counselling services is estimated at ˆ176m.

Since 2013, the Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Board, better known as Caranua, provides support services to survivors from cash contributed by the religious congregations following the publication of the Ryan report in 2009, the statement said.

The C&AG said that the work of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and of the Redress Board is largely complete and recommend that an evaluation of both would be useful.

"This should identify lessons learned and improvements which can be applied to any future redress schemes and/or commissions of inquiry," the statement said.