Averil Power (Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister for his reply. I remain of the opinion that restricting the fund only to those who would have been eligible to apply to the Residential Institutions Redress Board is the wrong move, particularly as some of the most vulnerable people will be excluded. Some of the survivor groups have made representations to me in this regard. The Minister indicated that there were 900 ineligible or withdrawn applications. He is now predicting that it is likely there will be 15,000 successful applications by the time the board has completed its work and that the number of unsuccessful applications stands at only 6%. The fact 94% of these 15,000 applications were successful is no reason to prevent those who did not apply to the board in the first instance from being considered for services under the Bill.