The Department of Education has confirmed that people abused in primary and post-primary schools will be excluded from the compensation tribunal announced on Tuesday.
The Government then agreed in principle to set up a compensation tribunal for those who suffered sexual, physical, emotional abuse or neglect while in institutional care.
This definition of abuse is that used in setting up the Commission on Child Abuse, which is hearing evidence of the abuse and investigating into it. However, its remit includes those abused in ordinary schools.
It is understood that the thinking behind the Department's decision on restricting the compensation tribunal to those in residential institutions is that they were removed from the normal protection of their families and put in care supervised by the State. Thus, the State had a special duty of care for protecting them while resident in such institutions.
However, the decision has been criticised by victims of abusing teachers and by lawyers representing them.
"I was one of 11 men who gave evidence against a man sentenced to eight years in jail last February for what Judge O'Donnell described as one of the worst cases he had ever dealt with," said Mr Derek Power. "He was a Christian Brother and the principal of the school. We lived in fear of our lives every day going into that school."
Mr Power said he was raped when he was seven years old and his brother was dying of leukaemia. He suffered very severely from post-traumatic stress disorder. "The Christian Brothers' own doctors, when they assessed my trauma, put it on the far end of the scale. The State is now saying my abuse is different from other people's abuse. It's a slap in the face."
Mr James McGuill, a solicitor for victims abused both in institutional care and in ordinary primary schools, said: "I am disappointed to discover that what looked like an oversight is a deliberate exclusion. This can only be seen as a cynical ploy to divide the survivors."