Eligibility criteria for the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme

To be eligible for benefits under the Payment Scheme you will need to have spent a certain amount of time in one (or more) of the institutions listed on the Institutions Covered by the Scheme page.

If you have received a court settlement in respect of the circumstances experienced and relating to the same time period in the institution or institutions being applied for, you will not be eligible to apply for a general payment or work-related payment. However, you may still be eligible for health supports.

The level of the financial payment will depend on the amount of time spent in one of the institutions. Further information on the payment rates for general and work-related payments is available.

Further information on the eligibility criteria for each of the benefits is outlined below.

You are eligible for a general payment if you were in one of the institutions listed on the Institutions Covered by the Scheme page:

• for at least one night, as a mother, for reasons relating to your pregnancy, or the birth or care of your child; or
• for at least 180 days, as a child

You are eligible for a work-related payment if you were in any of the institutions listed in table 1 on the Institutions Covered by the Scheme page for more than 90 days for reasons relating to pregnancy, or the birth or care of your child.

You are eligible for health supports if you spent 180 days or more in any of the institutions listed on the Institutions Covered by the Scheme page. These health supports will be either:

• an enhanced medical card; or
• for people living outside of Ireland only, a health support payment valued at €3,000, instead of the enhanced medical card

If you are applying for health supports, you will need to confirm that you have not received health supports under the Magdalen Restorative Justice Ex Gratia Scheme. If you have, then you will not be entitled to any health supports through this Payment Scheme. This is because anyone who received health supports under the Magdalen Restorative Justice Ex Gratia Scheme already has:

• a medical card, which provides the same benefits as the enhanced medical card under this Payment Scheme; or
• if living abroad, access to the Redress Reimbursement Scheme 2015