A proposed sliding scale of compensatory awards to be paid by the State to victims of abuse in schools and institutions will be drawn up by an expert group due to start work within weeks.
The awards will be administered through a Residential Institutions Redress Board which is due to begin work before the end of the year. People subject to physical, emotional and sexual abuse while resident in State and religious-run schools and institution since the 1940s are eligible to apply for awards.
The board will not offer compensation to day pupils on the basis that they, unlike people in residential care, were not removed from their families.
The awards will be based on medical and psychiatric evaluation of claimants and are intended as an alternative to High Court compensation claims. However, victims who reject an award could still pursue a civil claim through the courts.
The five- or six-member expert group will be made up of legal, medical and psychiatric professionals. The board is expected to be appointed and to have its inaugural meeting by the end of this month. It will determine criteria for the payments and establish a sliding scale or tariff based on categories of abuse. The group will then report to the Minister for Education who will draw up regulations setting out the guidelines for the compensation awards at the redress board.
The board will be separate to the ongoing work of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, which has no compensatory role, and was set up following public outrage over revelations in RTE's States of Fear documentary series in 1999. The programmes led to a public apology from the Taoiseach.
The amount of compensation paid out by the redress board is to be open-ended. According to one official estimate, about 2,000 victims could make a claim before the body. At an average cost of £50,000 per claimant, the State could face a bill of £100 million. There are up to 2,000 cases from survivors before the courts.
State negotiations with religious orders who might contribute to a compensation fund for victims are continuing at a senior level. However, the work of the redress board is not contingent on a contribution from church groups. Catholic Church sources recently denied a newspaper report that the church had agreed to pay £90 million into a fund.