The Government does not intend to reopen negotiations with religious orders on increasing their contribution as part of the controversial child abuse indemnity deal, despite a call from a leading Fianna Fáil backbencher.
Mr Seán Fleming made the call after a meeting of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which heard the orders had received a €6 million ex gratia payment from Church and General insurers in lieu of potential abuse claims.
He said he was asking the Government to revisit the "entire agreement" because of the insurance issue and said it "puts a fundamental question mark on the good faith in which this agreement was negotiated".
However, last night a spokesman for the Department of Education told The Irish Times that the deal was legally binding and would not be renegotiated.
Under the deal, the State provided the 18 orders with an indemnity against compensation claims relating to abuse at industrial schools and other children's homes, in return for a contribution of €128 million, two-thirds of it in property transfers to State agencies and charities.
The Dáil committee was continuing hearings into the indemnity deal and the State redress scheme, which it was told by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr John Purcell, would now cost a minimum of €276 million. The potential exposure was likely to cost at least 650 million, with an outer limit of €1 billion, including legal costs, although all of the figures were estimates and should be treated with caution, he said.
Yesterday Mr John Dennehy, the secretary general of the Department of Education, told the Dáil committee he had become aware of the insurance payment only in recent days. He said the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, had also raised the payment with the orders and suggested it should be made available as part of the deal.
Mr Dennehy also said that the Department was not aware that the orders had any form of insurance coverage during negotiations for the deal, which was signed off on in June 2002.
However, Sister Helena O'Donoghue, who represents the orders, has contradicted this and said there was "nothing hidden", and that she had personally disclosed that the orders had received a payment on RTÉ last year.
She said that Government officials were informed of the congregations' attempts to obtain payments from their insurers early on in the negotiations in 2001 but that they were not hopeful of achieving this.
Mr Dennehy was personally informed of these attempts at a meeting on January 7th, 2002, at which the then minister for education, Dr Michael Woods, also attended.
Both Dr Woods and Mr Dennehy were asked to use "their good offices" to lobby the insurance firms to reach a settlement with the orders, according to Sister O'Donoghue.
The issue of insurance was mentioned in a letter from a congregation representative to Mr Dennehy the following week, which was read out during the PAC hearings yesterday. Sister O'Donoghue has also rejected suggestions that the 6 million be handed over as a contribution to the redress scheme, in addition to the 128 million deal.
"I understand that's the view in Government circles," she said, "However, our contribution is €128 million." The congregations' resources had been depleted by the 128 million and the insurance money would be used to offset other costs associated with their response to the redress issue.
Labour leader Mr Pat Rabbitte has described the insurance issue as a "smoke screen" being used by Government to divert attention away from the PAC investigation into the deal signed by the State. This included the exclusion of the Attorney General's office during a key period of negotiations on the deal.
The Attorney General's office has refused to attend the hearings because of the confidential nature of its legal advice to Government. The congregations have also to date refused an invitation to attend.