Only a tiny percentage of those who were illegally charged by the State for nursing home care have been offered refunds.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) has confirmed that 2,500 repayment offers have been made so far.
An estimated 70,000 people or their estates are said to be eligible for refunds.
That means that only 3½ per cent of those eligible for refunds have been offered their money back nine months after applications for refunds were first invited.
A private company was contracted by the HSE to administer the refunds, the bill for which is expected to come to €1 billion.
To date some 28,000 applications for repayments have been submitted. Just 8.9 per cent of these - 2,500 - have been made offers of refunds.
The final date for receipt of applications for refunds is December 31st this year.
Asked why so few offers of refunds had been made to date, the HSE said offers were being made on a daily basis but some delays had been encountered.
"While the scheme is progressing with offers on a daily basis, some delays have been encountered, for example, in respect of over 12,000 estates that have lodged claims but do not have a grant of representation," it said in a statement.
It said that entitlement to claim must be established before an application can progress. This was to ensure that the person entitled to claim on behalf of an estate was the one who received the repayment.
"The scheme administrator has made arrangements with the Probate Office to expedite scheme-related grants of representation within a short number of months whereas the usual processing time for such a request can be upwards of one year or longer," the HSE added.
It said that other causes of delay included missing information from forms submitted, which in turn required further correspondence with applicants.
A countrywide road show aimed at addressing this problem was planned, it added.
The HSE also said it had been necessary for the scheme administrator to visit about 330 HSE facilities to review and retrieve old payments records before refunds could be made.
Furthermore, it said, it was always envisaged by both the Department of Health and the HSE that the repayment scheme would take two years to complete.