IRELAND
Irish Independent
Friday June 10th 2005
A HUGE €250m has been offered or awarded by the compensation board to victims of residential abuse, with thousands more claims waiting to be processed, latest figures reveal.
At the start of June, 3,204 awards had been offered or awarded by the Residential Institutions Redress Board (RIRB) to claimants.
The figure is up just under 1,000 since December. The number of applications has increased from 5,071 to 6,300 in the same six-month period, a rate of roughly 50 per week. The closing date for award applications by the board is December 15 next. If they continue at this rate, by the end of the year the total number will be near 7,500.
The board's latest report shows the average award to claimants is €78,000, which is an almost identical to that of last December.
The RIRB's refusal rate is almost zero. Of 3,277 applications processed so far, just two were refused under the board's remit. A further 71 were refused on the grounds they were not covered by the Residential Institutions Redress Act.
Posted by kshaw at June 10, 2005 08:17 AM