Éamon Ó Cuív presses for urgent payments for survivors

Minister, could you outline the progress that has been made under the commitment set out in the action plans for survivors and former residents of mother and baby homes because I think it's urgent that people know exactly how this is progressing and when the actions will take effect on the ground and one of the things I think we can get lost in the whole process and pay to understand that what really people care about is the actual change as it affects them. Since its publication last November, there has been strong progress in implementing many of the key commitments in the action plan. Now of the 22 actions, eight have already been completed while 12 are currently in progress and key achievements include the enactment of the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022 to conclusively address the wrongful denial of people's identity rights, the launch of a comprehensive public information campaign and the establishment of a new contact preference register under that act, paving the way for information and tracing services to open in October 2022. The passage of the Institutional Burials Bill across these houses that passed the Shannad last night will now go to the President for his consideration which will provide a legal basis for the intervention at Shoum and the publication of the Heads of Bill of the Mother and Baby Institution Payment Scheme to provide financial payments in the form of enhanced medical cards to eligible applicants. In addition, good progress is being made on the National Centre for Research and Remembrance and following Government approval of the high level proposals for the Centre on 29 March, a steering group has been established and has met on three occasions. Earlier this week Dublin City Council voted to transfer the proposed site for the Centre to the Office of Public Works, marking another step towards the development of this important site of national conscience. Work also continues on local memorialisation and in this regard consultative process with survivor advocacy groups and representatives led by independent facilitators took place throughout June. And importantly, dedicated professional counselling supports continue to be available nationwide with priority access to services for survivors. In addition to an annual progress report, which will be laid before the House towards the end of the year, my Department continues to prepare quarterly progress updates. On 31 May the 2nd of these updates were issued directly to every person who has provided their contact information to my Department's dedicated emailing list and that update was also published on my Department's website. Thank you for the comprehensive reply. I suppose what a lot of the victims of the mother and baby homes are very anxious about is when will the payments and the enhanced medical cards? People have to live in a practical world. They have to survive. And can you give some indication how and when the payments will be made and how and when the enhanced medical cards will be provided? And can you maybe also outline to me, have you done an analysis of the age profile of the people that are involved that would be likely to receive compensation? Because one of the problems here is a lot of them by definition must be very, very elderly at this point. And therefore every year that passes before we actually get to the point of making the payments will mean that more people are actually passed away or another part of their life is gone before these payments are made. And it will shorten the benefit of those payments to them considerably. Thank you. I am acutely aware of the importance of getting both the financial payments and the enhanced medical cards to those people who need them as a matter of urgency. That is why the drafting of this very detailed bill was done at pace. That is why the pre-legative scrutiny process is almost over, I believe. And I look to have that legislation passed early in the autumn term. And I would hope, and I have always said this was my hope, that the first payments could start to be drawn down before the end of this year or very early next year. That is the timetable we are working towards. As you know, it is a scheme that covers a lot of people. 34,000 survivors will be covered by this scheme. It is a value of €800 million. But I know until people are actually getting the tangible benefits of this scheme, you know, that is when its benefit will only be then its benefit is fully understood. Minister, have you got an age breakdown? Like, of the 34,000, that 10% are over 90 or, you know, between 80 and 90 and 70 and 80 and so on. Because I think when you look at that age profile, you are going to find that it is quite elderly and therefore that the absolute critical urgency of moving forward will be seen. Once the bill is enacted, presumably a scheme will be put in place. How simple will that scheme be to access for people or will it be complex? Because these are all the practical questions that people face in trying to either get the financial compensation or get the medical card enhancement. So you might outline in a little bit more detail on one, the age cohorts involved and number two, you know, what would the process be? You know, we have to make an application, presumably yes. How complex would that be? And what process will the administrative system go through before they make the awards? Thanks, Deputy. There is a breakdown of age. I do not have it for you now, but I can perhaps communicate it to you significantly. It is a wide span. There are people at that elderly edge of it, as you said. We are recognising that many of those eligible will have been former residents as children. There is a number on the kind of, I suppose, at middle age as well. In terms of the process, we are working now, even in advance of the passage of the bill, of creating an executive office within my department which will oversee the entire process. We are working to make sure the application process is as simple as possible. There will be one simple, single application form, irrespective of whether an individual is looking for the payment or the enhanced medical card or both. Where someone was in one of the mother and baby or county institutions covered by the institutional burials bill, the executive office will go into the records to see if there is evidence that they were in place. So the burden of work will be placed on the executive office rather than on individual survivors. We are very conscious of making this simple and making this swift. You can just keep the patent on the search once. You can keep it 오래 surging on the Jim Frank, that you won't want to bring to the public over classes. But thank you for anything because you got everyone. I'll wait for that at the beginning inую after this year's collection. Hope has a hearing. That's a very important question. Hope has learned is on J local churches, new churches, new churches, new churches. Hope has learned is on J your mainECC Freder hops校.