The body which will award compensation to people who were sexually and physically abused in religious institutions will be set up before the summer, the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, has said.
The Residential Institutions Redress Board will be able to award up to €300,000 to the most damaged victims, according to a scale laid down by an expert committee.
The eventual payments will depend on the severity and extent of the abuse and its long-term effects upon the victim, including the loss of opportunity suffered.
The payments will be larger than those made in Australia, Canada or the UK. This is in line with the higher awards which are generally made through the Irish courts system in civil compensation cases, Dr Woods said.
The Redress Board will be entitled to make interim payments on hardship grounds of up to €10,000to some of the 3,500 victims who are believed to have suffered.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that the Department of Finance rejected a €50 million compensation offer to the victims last October from the country's religious orders.
The Christian Brothers and other orders have now offered €128 million, partly in property transfers, to cover part of the awards to be made by the State compensation body.
Defending the size of the contribution, Dr Woods said that the Department of Education had failed in its duty of care towards the children.
"Some of these orders are in a dire state financially and very close to bankruptcy. There are differences between the orders," he told The Irish Times yesterday evening.
Records show that a succession of ministers and officials in the Department of Education had ignored warnings for years that children were being abused, he said.
The religious orders will be indemnified against future civil compensation actions from victims who opt to go before the Redress Board's private hearings, the Minister declared.
However, brothers and nuns who were guilty of abuse will still be liable to criminal actions. "There is no criminal indemnity in this deal," he added.
The Redress Board will not deal with cases alleging abuse by priests. "This does not include the clergy. It cover the religious congregations only," Dr Woods said.
Under the package, which was agreed earlier this month, the orders will pay €26 million into a compensation fund and a further €12.7 million into an education trust for victims.
Buildings and land worth €80 million will also be signed over to the State, including the €20 million worth of properties transferred since May 1999.
In addition, the orders will pay €10 million to cover the costs of counselling, retrieval of records and pastoral services.
The awards table has been drawn up by an expert committee.In its report, the committee said that the Redress Board must operate "with a suitable degree of predictability, sensitivity and flexibility" to offer "some tangible recognition of the seriousness of the hurt caused".
Publishing the experts' report, the Minister said: "[It] provides a sound basis for a fair system of financial awards to people who suffered injury as a result of abuse while in care. The State incarcerated people in these institutions for very flimsy reasons, for being born out of wedlock, for being absent from school, for being orphans."
The regulations necessary to operate the awards will be included in the Residential Institutions Redress Bill, which is due to begin its Report Stage in the Dáil shortly.
A Fine Gael TD, Mr Michael Creed, successfully demanded that Dr Woods appear before the Oireachtas Education and Science Committee to explain the detail of the agreement.
