The State is facing a compensation and legal bill relating to child abuse at orphanages and industrial schools of more than €600 million, figures from the official State compensation scheme have suggested.
According to figures released by the Residential Institutions Redress Board, between 6,500 and 7,000 former residents are now expected to claim compensation through the scheme. However, the board has warned that this could be an underestimate of the final numbers who eventually make claims.
According to the latest figures from the Department of Education and Science, less than one fifth of the total number of expected applications have now been processed. The board has already made awards in excess of 100 million, and should the current level of awards continue, payments will exceed 600 million.
The new figures have led to renewed criticisms from Opposition politicians about how the Government handled the scheme.
They also said it backed up a highly critical report last year from the Comptroller and Auditor General which said the Government failed to carry out a proper evaluation of the number of potential claimants before providing a full indemnity to religious orders that ran the schools in return for a 47 million cash contribution and a further 80 million in property transfers.
According to the Residential Institutions Redress Board's first annual report, which was posted on its website in recent weeks, it expects to process applications from between 6,500 and 7,000 people over its lifetime.
"This is based on information supplied by a number of the solicitors who have presented the most applications to date as and compared with the total number of applications expected from them in the future," the annual report stated. "The board recognises that this estimate is tentative as there are no precedents for this scheme. The extent to which potential applicants have postponed until later contact with their legal advisers and/or the board is an unknown factor."
The latest figures available from the board show that it has now received nearly 4,000 applications and made a total of 1,340 settlement offers to date, averaging 77,000 each or 102 million in total. This average has declined from 80,000 for 2003.
The potential legal costs in the event of 7,000 applications stand at 80 million.
Originally the Department of Education estimated the likely numbers to be between 1,000 and 2,000.
This was revised upwards to in the region of 3,000 when the indemnity deal was signed in June 2002.
Labour's education spokeswoman, Ms Jan O'Sullivan, said the latest figures "very much undermine" the Government's indemnity agreement with the religious orders.
She said the figures bore out concerns that the religious orders were paying only a small proportion of the final compensation bill.
Fine Gael education spokeswoman Ms Olwyn Enright said the Government had still "to provide any decent explanation about the haste in which this deal was done on the last day in office of the last Government".