The State faces the prospect of a fresh surge in claims from potentially thousands of Irish people living abroad who may be eligible for compensation as victims of abuse in Ireland's orphanages and other state institutions.
Representatives of Right of Place, an Irish organisation campaigning for the healing of institutional abuse, are travelling to the US next week to raise awareness of the entitlements awaiting some Irish people for abuse they received over a period dating back a number of decades.
The prospect of a surge in claims is sure to worry the Government which has already proposed narrowing the scope of the child abuse inquiry to avoid the prospect of the hearings continuing for 10 years.
The Taoiseach has also appeared to rule out any alternatives to the Government's plan for a sampling approach to the child abuse commission's investigation work.
He has said the conduct of individual trials for each allegation of abuse was "maybe the only way", but made a point of saying that continuing the inquiry for 10 years was not "an acceptable way of dealing with it".
According to Right of Place, as many as 100,000 of the 150,000 children and teenagers who went through residential institutions in Ireland between the 1920s and the 1980s went abroad.
Many experienced abuse at the hands of religious and others while in orphanages, industrial schools and centres for young offenders and many may not be aware of the Residential Institutions Redress Board.
The board was established by the Government to compensate and assist people who were abused in institutions. It had received just 1,662 applications by the end of July, most of them came from the Republic.
Mr Tony Tracy, one of the Right of Place speakers due to appear at the US seminars, said tonight: "I am speaking at these information seminars because the organisation I work for receives a small amount of calls from around theworld including the US, from people who are vaguely aware that there is a redress board.
"There needs to be a much greater level of awareness and these information seminars are an attempt to connect with survivors and to make them aware of their right to counselling, education, compensation and assistance in tracing their records."
Additional reporting PA