The Government has granted an extra three years to the child abuse commission to finish its investigation into nearly 5,000 compensation claims.
The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, headed by Mr Justice Seán Ryan, is now due to end in May 2008 despite signs last year that it would have to sit for a further six years until 2014.
"The commission indicated to the Minister that it intends that its report on its investigation into child abuse will be published by that time," the Department of Education said last night.
The commission's investigation committee held public hearings in June which showed that the Vatican carried out 30 canonical trials of Christian Brothers alleged to have raped or abused children.
The inquiry is now holding hearings into allegations levelled against individual institutions, including St Joseph's Industrial School, Clonmel, Co Tipperary, and others.
Mr Colm O'Gorman, the head of One in Four, one of the organisations representing victims, welcomed the Government's decision. "We are feeling more confident about the inquiry than we have had for some time.
"Many people feel disappointed that the commission is not proving to be the inquiry that we were promised by the Taoiseach, where everyone who had a story to tell could have done so.
"People are perhaps beginning to realise that this was never realistic, and that the inquiry would never do what civil law could not do. The expectations created were not realistic."
Nearly 5,000 compensation claims have been lodged to the Residential Institutions Redress Board by former inmates, while €141 million has already been paid out to 1,900 victims.
The average award to date has been €77,000, though a €300,000 payment has been made in one particularly severe case, the Department of Education has previously said.
However, Mr John Kelly, of Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA), was highly critical of the commission's performance, saying it had failed to keep every promise.
The commission would not "name and shame" individuals and institutions, nor would it offer every former inmate the opportunity of telling their story.
The compensation offered so far has been very small. "The taxpayer owes these people all of the money and a whole lot more. Bertie Ahern has gone back on every promise made in 1999."
Meanwhile, former inmates of a number of other institutions are now able to make claims for compensation following a decision last week to extend the number of institutions covered to 141.
The 13 are: the Bartres Children's Home in Dún Laoghaire; the Chester Lodge at Moate; Finglas Child and Adolescent Centre, (including the national remand and assessment unit and the care and education unit); Holy Family School, Renmore, Galway; the Kilcornan Centre at Clarinbridge, Galway; Marlborough House, Glasnevin, Dublin; both Oberstown boys' and girls' centres at Lusk; St Columba's Industrial School at Killybegs; St Patrick's Mother and Baby Home, Navan Road, Dublin; St Philomena's, Stillorgan, Dublin; St Teresa's, Blackrock, Dublin; and Trinity House, Lusk, Co Dublin.
