A coalition of survivors of child abuse in schools and institutions said a meeting with Government officials yesterday about plans for a State compensatory scheme was very productive.
The group, representing some 1,200 victims, had sought some amendments to the Government's proposals to compensate people who suffered physical, emotional or sexual abuse as children while resident in State and religious-run institutions since the 1940s.
The Federation of Independent Survivors Group met officials from the Department of Education yesterday to discuss the proposed scheme, which could cost up to £100 million, according to some estimates.
A spokesman for the federation, Mr John Kelly, said last night the meeting was "all in all very productive, but the devil is in the detail and we will be scrutinising legislation before it comes out in the Dail".
The Government's proposals are loosely based on Canadian models which set a sliding scale of awards for various categories of abuse, ranging from severe sexual to minor physical or non-physical mistreatment.
The scheme is non-adversarial and victims will not be asked to prove they were abused, but only to detail the abuse they suffered while resident at an institution over which the State had regulatory or supervisory functions. Mr Kelly said the federation was assured at yesterday's meeting that the amount of compensation awarded would be commensurate with High Court payments.
However, the federation's calls for the scheme to include day pupils, instead of only residents at institutions, were rejected.
The Government intends compensating only residents on the basis that they were removed from the normal protection of their families and put in care supervised by the State which had a duty to protect them.
Meanwhile, Ms Christine Buckley, who was abused at the Goldenbridge orphanage in Dublin, said she agreed day pupils should be excluded from the proposed compensation scheme. She said day pupils should be dealt with subsequently.