Commission estimates costs of redress for abuse at over £2 billion

The Chairman of Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Justice Peter McClellan, has forecast that the total cost of redress to survivors of abuse could be A$4.38bn (£2.26bn), with institutions, which include the Church, providing 55 per cent of the total.

Justice McClellan, releasing a consultation paper on redress and civil litigation in Sydney on 30 January, said modelling in the paper assumed there were 65,000 eligible survivors and average payments of A$65,000 (£33,600).

“This number will vary depending on the assumptions made,” he said. “It is important to emphasise that, although it appears governments must accept a broader role in providing redress, the primary responsibility is with the institution, government or otherwise, where a survivor was abused. That institution must provide an appropriate personal response, and be responsible for funding the counselling and money for each person abused in that institution.”