The Residential Institutions Redress Board is reported to have received 773 applications since it began operations last December. Thirty of these applications have been rejected as outside its terms of reference.
In its first newsletter the Board anticipates that a number of valid applications should be processed next month, allowing hearings and settlement discussions to commence.
It will continue to accept applications until December 2005.
The Board says many applications lacked essential information and that until this is received, the relevant form will be noted but not processed further.
It also says it will be easier to assess claims containing first hand statements of abuse expressed in the applicants' own words rather than second hand accounts related in a medical report.
A number of applicants have asked the Board to obtain a wide range of documents, usually from the Department of Education and/or those who ran a particular institution.
But the Board underlines that it can only get them in those rare cases where the applicant has failed through Freedom of Information requests, for example, to access information essential for the application.
The Board says it understands the desire of survivors to fill in gaps in their life story but says that task is outside its remit.
Last December, informed sources said that as many as 8,000 people might avail of the new confidential scheme and estimated its cost at about €400 hundred million. Catholic religious have agreed to pay €128 million of this.
The final number of applicants will not be known until December 2005, the closing date for all but the most exceptional applications.
The newsletter can be found at www.rirb.ie
