Almost £100 million (€119.7 million) in compensation has so far been paid to victims and survivors of abuse in institutions in Northern Ireland.
In an update to Stormont’s Executive Office committee on Wednesday, representatives from the Historical Institutional Abuse Redress Board said that, as of August 31st, it had made determinations on compensation totalling £93.5 million.
As of the same date, the board had received just over 4,600 compliant applications, and has considered approximately 4,500 of these, with 57 applications and one appeal remaining to be considered at present.
The scheme will close for applications on April 2nd next year.
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The establishment of a publicly-funded compensation scheme, administered by a time-limited redress board, was one of the recommendations of the 2017 Hart report, which investigated the abuse of children under 18 who were living in an institution in the North between 1922 and 1995.
It found evidence of sexual, physical and emotional abuse, neglect and unacceptable practices across the 22 Catholic, Protestant and state-run homes and institutions that it investigated.
Anyone who suffered abuse while a child resident in an institution in Northern Ireland between those dates, or who was sent to Australia as part of the child migrant programme, is eligible to apply for compensation.
The Stormont committee was told that applications have been received from people who were resident in 135 different institutions, not only the 22 that were investigated by Hart.
[ ‘The state let you down’: apology issued to NI institutional abuse victimsOpens in new window ]
Barnardos, the De La Salle order, Sisters of Nazareth, Sisters of St Louis, the Good Shepherd Sisters and the Irish Church Missions were identified in the Hart report as being required to make contributions towards the cost of the redress scheme and specialist support services.
So far, three of these – Barnardos, the Good Shepherd Sisters and the De La Salle order – have made unspecified payments.
Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) Assembly member Timothy Gaston said the De La Salle order had provided the committee with a figure of £3.5 million. Mr Gaston also raised concerns that some of the institutions involved had failed to appear before the committee to give evidence. The committee chair, Alliance MLA Paula Bradshaw, said it had tried to invite them in June and “we’ve been playing this cat-and-mouse game ever since”, and using the committee’s powers to compel them to attend was under consideration.
She said Wednesday’s evidence session had effectively been the deadline for the institutions to agree to attend voluntarily, and the clerk was now looking at the committee’s powers to compel them to appear.
“We’re not letting this one go,” Ms Bradshaw said.
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