The Department of Education says its compensation scheme proposals are intended as an aid to consultation on the details of how the scheme will work. Religious orders who ran industrial schools have agreed in principle to make a financial contribution to the scheme, although no details have yet been agreed.
The State's proposals include:
A scheme by next summer to compensate people abused as children while resident in institutions where the State had regulatory or supervisory functions.
The scheme is to be open-ended, with the Government providing public funds as necessary and a contribution from religious congregations "as and if agreed".
The compensation body to be chaired by a senior judge.
Validation of claims to be conducted in a non-adversarial way.
Payment to be made without establishing any liability on the part of the State bodies.
Compensation to be paid for "current and subsisting damage" caused by abuse and past damage, from which the claimant has now recovered.
No compensation for loss of earnings.
An expert group to draft detailed criteria for awards to ensure transparency and allow claimants to know in advance the likely scale of their awards.
Programme to be based on a Canadian model with a sliding scale of compensation categories.
No right to High Court appeal against the level of awards, although further consultation anticipated on some sort of review for dissatisfied people.
