586. Deputy Ivana Bacik asked the Minister for Education and Youth the average processing time for an application for the redress scheme for survivors of institutional abuse; the number of staff allocated to work on such applications and the proportion of these allocated on a full-time basis; and her plans to accelerate the processing time for applications, grant of payment and payment of monies. [65247/26]

My Department is responsible for confirming eligibility for the education and health supports which are being provided to eligible survivors under the Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Act 2025 and for processing relevant payments under the Act.

To date, approximately 1,600 applications have been received by my Department, although it should be noted that in many cases it is necessary to engage with the applicant concerned to ensure that all of the required information or documentation is received so that the application can be progressed. My Department is engaging with relevant applicants or their advocates on an ongoing basis in that regard, including by phone or email as appropriate.

Once all relevant information has been provided as part of an application, the applicant’s eligibility can be confirmed and their applications for supports, if any, can be processed. Applications for informal education support payments, which amount to €600, are generally issued by the Department within a matter of weeks, while a similar timeline also applies to formal education support payments, where more detailed engagement with the applicant is required. To date, a total of approximately 1,300 education support payments have been made by the Department.

With regard to health support payments, which are available to eligible survivors resident outside the State, it is expected that these payments will begin issuing very shortly.

My Department is also responsible for providing the HSE with information on eligible applicants who have applied for the survivor-specific medical card. This information is updated and provided to the HSE on a monthly basis and, to date, information on almost 1,000 eligible applicants has been provided. It is then a matter for the HSE to process that information and issue the cards to survivors.

The administration of these supports is the responsibility of the Department’s Residential Institutions Redress Unit, which currently has a staffing complement of approximately 15 staff. As well as the administration of the supports, the Unit is also responsible for a number of other matters, including governance and oversight of the redress bodies and litigation relating to historical sexual abuse in schools.

However, all of the staff within the Unit are involved in the administration of the supports, whether through confirming the eligibility of applicants, engagement with applicants to progress their applications, responding to queries, consideration and processing of the applications themselves, preparing and sending relevant information to the HSE and setting up payments on the Department’s financial system.

The administration of these supports is kept under ongoing review and my Department is committed to ensuring that applications are processed as efficiently as possible. This includes engagement with relevant stakeholders to ensure that any potential process improvements are identified. In that regard, my Department is currently finalising updated application forms, in consultation with stakeholders, and these will be published on the Department’s website in due course.