The Minister for Education and Science, Ms Hanafin, has said she does not intend extending the remit of the Redress Board to allow it compensate children abused while attending day schools. Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent, reports.
The Minister said it was a very different situation, where parents willingly placed their children in day schools.
"They could go home to their parents, as opposed to children in residential institutions, who were under their control 24 hours a day, seven days a week," she said.
The Dáil is to approve extending the Redress Board remit to include 13 more institutions.
This will bring to 141 the number of institutions on the schedule of the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002.
Ms Hanafin said she estimated that the 13 new institutions would mean that "less than 100" more people would be eligible to seek compensation from the board.
The additional institutions had been run by religious congregations already signed up to the State indemnity deal, she said.
Members of the Oireachtas Committee on Education have been assured that awards by the Redress Board were in line with those of the High Court, and that it had an obligation to do this.
Whereas the average award to date was €77,000, a sum as high as €300,000 had been given in one case, Ms Hanafin said.
As of the end of September last, the Redress Board had received 4,517 applications, and continued to receive them at a rate which was slightly less than 50 a week. By the end of September the board had completed dealings with about 1,900 cases, with a total awarded of approximately €141 million.
The remaining 2,600 cases were at various stages of the process.
The 13 institutions to be added to the redress schedule are: the Bartres Children's Home in Dún Laoghaire; the Chester Lodge at Moate; Finglas Child and Adolescent Centre, (including the national remand and assessment unit and the care and education unit); Holy Family School, Renmore, Galway; the Kilcornan Centre at Clarinbridge, Galway; Marlborough House, Glasnevin, Dublin; both Oberstown boys' and girls' centres at Lusk; St Columba's Industrial School at Killybegs; St Patrick's Mother and Baby Home, Navan Road, Dublin; St Philomena's, Stillorgan, Dublin; St Teresa's, Blackrock, Dublin; and Trinity House, Lusk, Co Dublin.