The Government's agreement with the religious institutions has been sharply criticised by the Opposition, who said the orders were paying too little.
The inclusion of property transfers in the compensation package was, in particular, denounced by Fine Gael TD Mr Michael Creed and Labour TD Ms Róisín Shortall.
The negotiations with the Conference of Religious in Ireland (CORI), which concluded with a €128 million compensation offer, were conducted in secret, Mr Creed noted. "The religious orders should be seen to pay an amount which is commensurate with their culpability and with their capacity to pay," he said.
The structure of the agreement between CORI and the Department of Education was questioned by Ms Shortall, the Labour Party's spokeswoman on education and children.
The orders should not be entitled to put a value on their work to retrieve records for victims, who were abused in homes by Christian Brothers and other organisations, she said. "There should not be a cost on this. We would expect that they would co-operate with victims' desire for records. They should not be entitled to value that," she added.
The Department of Education and CORI's statements do not make it clear whether the religious would provide €10m for counselling to be offered by others. There should not be a connection between counselling and the institutions.
"We have had that happen before and it has been entirely unsatisfactory. Counselling must be entirely independent," the Dublin North West TD said.
The land transfer section of the agreement was questioned strongly by Mr Creed and Ms Shortall, who said the orders should not be allowed to include land transferred to the State before now.
"We would expect the orders to make some sort of a contribution to housing problems. This is a very minor contribution to housing problems," Ms Shortall said.
Mr Creed said: "This raises more questions than it answers. What is the benefit to victims of such property transfers? Is the Minister prepared to transfer the value of the properties into the fund?"
"It would appear that all of the religious institutions are contributing upfront less than €27 million," said the Cork North West TD, who has repeatedly questioned the Government's strategy.
He added: "We tried in the Committee on Education and Science to tease out the Minister for Education's tactics.Was he trying to make the orders responsible for a share of the total bill, or a lump-sum?"
