In the report published today by the ESRI, there was a focus on a number of different areas of waste. One that was not mentioned, however, was the indemnity deal that we traced in this House on quite a few occasions in the past. The Taoiseach will recall this was a secret deal that gave indemnity to an entire array of contingent liabilities without ceiling. He will also recall that the State was bound to pay for the outcome. Notwithstanding the recommendation from the Department of Finance that it would be on the basis of a 50-50 break between the religious congregations and the State, the Government went ahead and ratified the deal in a most unusual fashion.

On several occasions in this House when I quoted figures advanced by the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Taoiseach used one of his favourite phrases saying that I was off the wall. In September 2003, I questioned whether figures from the Comptroller and Auditor General, ranging from €869 million to €1.04 billion, were correct. In reply, the Taoiseach said: "Our view continues to be that it will not be anything like what the eminent Comptroller has said." The Taoiseach repeated that line several times in the House. The 2005 report of the Comptroller and Auditor General was published recently and showed that the cost of the indemnity deal is now estimated to be €1.327 billion. How can the Taoiseach possibly justify the secret deal that was done without a memorandum to Cabinet, based on a verbal presentation by a Minister who was to leave office the following day, excluding the usual professional advice from the Attorney General's office, and without sight of the agreement? A deal was entered into that capped the contribution of the religious congregations at £100 million or €127 million.

The Deputy's time has concluded.

If one subtracts that figure from the €1,327 million it means the Taoiseach is out by €1,200 million, or if he accepted the Department of Finance's 50-50 split, which would roughly have given €660 million to the State and €660 to the religious congregations, the Taoiseach is out by €534 million. That is the kind of waste that occurred. Does the Taoiseach admit he was wrong?

No.

Does he admit the deal was a disaster for the taxpayer? Has he learned any lessons from it other than the lesson we will apparently now have to live with, which is that the Minister, Deputy Cullen, will not tell us the cost of projects anymore?

The Deputy's time has concluded.

He cannot be wrong on that. If he does not tell us, we cannot know. The Taoiseach defended the Minister, Deputy Cullen, as being wise in not telling us, while the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform applied the opposite methodology when he bought a prison site. He let it be known who the purchaser was and we ended up paying €30 million for a site that was valued at about €6 million. Is there any limit to the waste in which the Government is engaged? What does the Taoiseach now say on the figures chalked up under the indemnity deal for which taxpayers will continue to pay in future?

The Deputy began by mentioning the ESRI report and I would have been glad to debate it but he did not ask a question on it so I will leave it aside.

Good.

We thank the ESRI for its contribution to the debate. The Government will continue to do the right things to help the economy.

Will the Taoiseach not comment on that?

He should not read the rest of the page.

We will not tax more, spend more or put up school fees. Some 14,000 applications have been made to the Residential Institutions Redress Board. Earlier estimates of the final cost by the Department of Education and Science, and of the board itself, were lower than this. The Department's estimate prior to the establishment of the board was €610 million, including legal and administrative costs. It must be accepted that nobody could have predicted with certainty how many applications there would be. It was not known how many people were in our institutions that were under State control and it was not known how many of those would put forward a case of abuse of one kind or another. I think we are getting closer to knowing what that is. The final cost of the scheme will not be known until the board has completed its work. The estimate that the final cost could be up to €1.3 billion was based on the number of applications received by the Department at the 2005 deadline, a cumulative average award of €76,000, and legal and administrative costs of approximately 20%.

In outlining this estimate last January, the Comptroller and Auditor General also referred to the possibility of the average award decreasing as more applications are processed. Allowing for this, he put the final cost of the scheme at between €1 billion and €1.3 billion. He added that any estimate of the ultimate liability arising from the redress scheme is based on assumptions which are impossible to validate and should therefore be treated with caution. Recent trends in awards made by the board would suggest that the average award is indeed falling, as the Comptroller and Auditor General said, but there is no guarantee that that trend will continue.

The fact has been accepted by the Comptroller and Auditor General's report that none of us could have known what the figures would be. Indeed, the redress board has emphasised that. The board's original estimate, in its 2003 report, was between 6,500 and 7,000 applicants and it estimated between 7,500 and 8,000 applicants in its 2004 report. The figures were tentative and there were no precedents for the scheme. Either way, those are the statistics. I know Deputy Rabbitte's view on this matter and he knows mine. As far as the deal is concerned, we had an obligation to set up a scheme to deal with people who were abused, in one form or another, in State institutions run by religious. Seven years ago, I apologised on behalf of the State and I said we would set up a scheme.

The taxpayers will pay for it.

Yes, the taxpayers will pay for it, as they did for Army deafness and other issues. Let us be honest about the point at which Deputy Rabbitte and I differ on this matter. He believes I should have taken the money from the church but I do not. I do not believe the church should have coughed up another €500 million. I accept Deputy Rabbitte's view and he should accept mine. The Irish church does not have those resources. I was not prepared to go down that road, nor am I prepared to do so now. Some 14,000 people who were abused in institutions have applied to the Residential Institutions Redress Board. We all thought there were 5,000 such people at one stage but then the figure rose to 7,500, then 8,000 and later 9,000. If the figure is 14,000, so be it.

What happened in those days is sad. The Deputy may argue that they should not be paid or that we should take land off the churches, but that is not a road I would go down.

Fifty-fifty.

I make no apology to this House or to anyone else about the way we did it. We made an apology and said that we would give substantial payments to these individuals, many of whose lives were wrecked. In addition, many of their family lives were non-existent because of what had occurred. The position is that we are paying them and I stand over the decision. I do not believe for a second that we should have taken any more money from the religious institutions in the State. That is my position.

There is no point in the Taoiseach looking across at me with his "Brian Dobson" eyes and saying "Sure, nobody could have known". If nobody could have known, why did he cap the amount at £100 million? He is dealing with taxpayers' money. There is no point in taking out the handkerchief again and talking about how — it is true — so many thousands of lives were disgracefully ruined. It is true that everybody in this House believes that they ought to be compensated, but that is not the issue. The issue is that the Taoiseach was in charge of taxpayers' money and he set up an arrangement whereby a man who was leaving office the next day did not comply with required Cabinet procedures, did not submit a memorandum, excluded the Attorney General's office from the advices that were given in advance and did not make the agreement available to Ministers. The Taoiseach entered into a secret deal. As the number of applicants climbs by thousands, the Taoiseach now says "Sure, how could I have known?" How can the Taoiseach know the length of the port tunnel to Dublin Airport? At that rate of going he would probably end up at the prison site in Thornton Hall.

The Deputy's time has concluded.

The Department of Education and Science's original assessment was €250 million, not €651 million, yet the Taoiseach has ended up paying €1,200 million of taxpayers' money. Many people would translate that into so many classroom places or special needs assistants. Why, if the Department of Finance said 50:50 was a fair division, was it forced from that in a secret arrangement while the then Attorney General was locked out?

The Deputy's time has concluded.

The Attorney General of the day subsequently went into retreat, as he does on occasions like this, and we will have to await his memoirs to hear what happened. This would put special needs assistants into a great many classrooms and provide a lot of additional classroom places. A 50:50 division was regarded as fair by the Department of Finance but the Taoiseach made an unorthodox secret arrangement through the agency of Deputy Woods. There is no point in implying the rest of the House is in any way begrudging the due entitlement of the unfortunate people who were abused and in respect of whom the State did not carry out the invigilation it ought to have done of these institutions.

Deputy Rabbitte is not going to have it both ways. I have listened carefully to his points.

No, the Taoiseach did not.

The figures compiled in the Department of Education and Science and at various times by the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Residential Institutions Redress Board range from 6,000 to 9,000, but 14,000 applications have been made. The State was responsible for these institutions and either ran them or contracted religious orders to do so.

It did not.

I have listened to the Deputy's leader, so the Deputy should listen to me.

Allow the Taoiseach continue without interruption.

The State placed——

The State abdicated its responsibilities.

I am trying to answer the Deputy's leader. The State placed the children in these institutions.

It did not look after them.

Please allow me to answer the Deputy's leader. The State placed the children in these institutions and was responsible for them. If it had been fought in court, the State would have been jointly liable and——

Jointly liable.

——the State's deeper pockets would have ended up paying the full bill. That is what would have happened legally.

Exactly.

Why did the Tánaiste not give that advice at the time, rather than offering it now?

Allow the Taoiseach continue without interruption, please.

I am answering Deputy Rabbitte's question.

It is not necessarily true and the Taoiseach knows that.

Deputy Rabbitte took seven minutes despite being entitled to three. He should not take the Taoiseach's time now.

He takes that much time every day, as a matter of interest and outside of Standing Orders.

The Taoiseach, without interruption.

Some 14,000 of our citizens were abused in one form or another in State-run institutions. The Deputy cannot say they should be given their due entitlement but that we should not have done it this way. There was no other way but to apologise, which we did, set up a redress system, which we did, and put in a system which would give them fair recompense for what happened to them. That was a fair thing to do. Deputy Rabbitte's view, which I respect, is that the Irish Catholic Church should have paid the money. My view was that it did not have the money and we owed it to these people to pay them back. That was the judgment we made; it was made in a full and open Cabinet decision and I make no apologies for it.