Solicitors representing victims of abuse are expected to discuss their ongoing demands for a compensation scheme for survivors at a meeting next week with lawyers for the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.
The ad hoc group of solicitors for up to 1,000 survivors of abuse in State-run and religious institutions have effectively threatened to advise their clients to boycott the commission unless their demands are conceded.
The Department of Education, which established the commission last year, is understood to be considering their calls for a compensation tribunal, similar to the Hepatitis C Compensation Tribunal. The solicitors want this to run in tandem with the Laffoy commission's hearings, which are expected to last two years.
It is likely that any future scheme could compensate survivors of abuse in State institutions and religious-run schools more cost-effectively for the Government than if each victim took a separate case to the courts.
Recent out-of-court awards to victims of sexual and physical abuse in religious-run institutions or by clerics have ranged between £30,000 and about £75,000, according to legal sources. Awards for survivors of purely physical abuse are significantly lower.
The compensation issue has caused tensions between survivors groups, with some believing the matter should be dealt with after the commission has finished its work. Other victims want a compensation tribunal to run in tandem with the commission's hearings and to deal with claims from people who have already testified before the commission.
In a joint letter sent to the commission in July, the solicitors said it would be difficult for them to advise their clients to participate in the commission's work until the issue of a compensation scheme was "satisfactorily addressed".
At its most recent public sitting that month, the commission's chairwoman, Ms Justice Laffoy, said the solicitors' concerns deserved important consideration.
Mr Michael Lanigan, a Kilkenny-based solicitor involved in the ad hoc group, said it expected to meet counsel to the commission, Mr Frank Clarke SC, early next week to move on the question of a compensation tribunal and to discuss other issues "to allow the survivors groups and their lawyers to participate fully with the commission". It is understood the solicitors have already received concessions from the Department of Education to their request for its role in the work of the commission to be scaled down.
They had told the commission their clients felt the role of the Department's personnel and re sources in it was "an unacceptable conflict of interest", given the criticisms levelled against the Department which controlled many of the institutions where the abuse occurred. In an effort to allay these concerns, the Department of Health is expected to take over some of the functions.
The Laffoy commission has the powers and privileges of the High Court and was established to investigate abuse allegations and to make recommendations as well as to provide a therapeutic role of giving a sympathetic and confidential hearing to survivors.