The Government's sexual abuse compensation deal last year with Catholic religious orders could cost €500 million, the Minister for Education and Science said last night.
The Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr Seán Purcell, however, is expected to put a €1 billion price tag on the agreement reached between the orders and Mr Dempsey's predecessor, Dr Michael Woods.
"Our estimate is the same that it always was: €500 million. The only way that anybody will ever be proved right or wrong about it is when the Redress Board has finished its work," Mr Dempsey told The Irish Times yesterday.
The average compensation from the Redress Board currently stands at approximately €80,000, but this figure could drop once the board finishes dealing with cases involving elderly or seriously ill victims.
Mr Dempsey will face Opposition criticism today over the resignation of Ms Justice Mary Laffoy when he appears before the Oireachtas Committee on Education and Science. Defending his actions last night, Mr Dempsey said the Government had been concerned that the commission's work was not proceeding as quickly as it would have liked.
"The fact is that some of the survivors' groups said that they were concerned about the rate that things were moving as well," he said. He rejected charges that his officials had been slow to release files to Ms Justice Laffoy.
The Laffoy commission will dominate the Dáil's calendar this week. A three-hour debate on the issue, along with a subsequent question-and-answer session, will be held on Wednesday evening.
However, the Labour Party leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, last night said he intended to table a Dáil motion unless the Government agreed that Wednesday's "series of statements" should be put to a vote. Labour deplored as "negligent and profligate" the deal brokered by Dr Woods on June 5th, 2002, the day before the general election, particularly since its terms were not drafted by the Attorney General's Office.
Yesterday, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr McDowell, who signed off on the agreement when he served as Attorney General at the time, acknowledged: "Its merits are arguable." He said the Government was faced with a difficult dilemma whereby it would compensate victims even though they would not be required to meet High Court standards of proof.
The State had a liability because it ordered the children to be placed in the care of the religious institutions and then failed to inspect them properly and failed to stop abuses happening, he told RTÉ's The Week in Politics.
Under changes put forward by Mr Dempsey, many abuse victims will not have their case heard by the Redress Board, but he has already moved away from plans to limit the numbers to just a sample. Meanwhile, the Green Party is to include the handling of the Laffoy Commission when it puts down a motion condemning the Government's "series of debacles" this week.
