LAST UPDATE | 13 Jun

THE AVERAGE REDRESS payment made to survivors of mother and baby institutions via the Government’s new scheme is €31,000 to date.

Some 3,600 people have applied for redress under the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme since it opened in March.

Some 371 people were deemed eligible for redress as of 7 June, the Department of Children has confirmed to The Journal.

Of this, 53 people have accepted the offer made to them and these payments are currently either being processed or have already been paid.

To date, payments made have ranged between €20,000 and €40,000 with an average payment of €31,000.

A spokesperson for the department said the ranges and average levels of payments are “likely to fluctuate over time as the number of awards issued increases”.

At present, the maximum time for an applicant to receive their payment after accepting an offer is three weeks with “most received in a shorter time frame”, the spokesperson added.

The remainder of the 371 payments will be processed if and when those individuals accept the offer made to them.

Once a person is offered a payment, they have six months to decide whether or not to accept it.

People who accept an offer have to sign a waiver agreeing to not take any future legal action related to their time in an institution.

Thousands excluded from scheme 

Around 34,000 people are eligible to apply for redress under the long-awaited scheme, which is estimated will cost around €800 million.

However, some 24,000 survivors are excluded from the scheme including those who spent less than six months in an institution as a child.

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A number of people are considering legal action over their exclusion from the scheme, as previously reported by The Journal.

Compensation for mothers starts at €5,000 and increases based on the duration of their stay and whether or not they engaged in ‘commercial work’.

As of 3 June, 10,153 sets of records have been released to people from Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland under the Birth Information and Tracing Act. 

After initial delays, applications are “being responded to within statutory timeframes (max 90 days), and there is currently no backlog of requests”, a department spokesperson said.