Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme: payment tables and calculator

Last updated 25 September 2026 · By Mustafa Bilgic · Amounts from the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act 2023 on irishstatutebook.ie, figures from the Payment Scheme Office to the end of August 2026

Below are both payment tables, the 44 institutions with their concluding years, how time is counted and what happens after an offer. The calculator adds up your periods of residence and applies the tables.

Payment tables

Mothers and children get the same general payment for the same number of days, once a child reaches 180 days. The work-related payment is paid on top, but only for days a mother spent in one of the 29 County Homes, the Tuam Children's Home or Sean Ross Abbey.

Who can apply

The Act covers two groups. The first is anyone who was resident in a listed institution as a child. The second is anyone, child or adult, who was resident because of their pregnancy or the birth or care of their child, where the main purpose of the admission was shelter and maintenance. You count as resident if you were born in, or admitted to, the institution and spent at least one night there. Each person can make only one application, covering every period as a mother and as a child.

A personal representative can apply for the estate of someone who died on or after 13 January 2021, the date of the State apology. Estate applications can cover the general payment and the work-related payment, but not health supports. You do not need records: give the institution and your best estimate of the dates, and the Chief Deciding Officer checks the records.

How your time is counted

• Every day counts, including the first and last: the date of entry and the date of discharge are both included. If you were born in the institution, your date of birth is the date of entry.
• Concluding year: a period only counts if you were admitted on or before 31 December of the institution's concluding year, shown in the table below.
• Absences: a temporary absence of more than 180 days is not counted. A shorter absence, where you returned to the same institution for the same reason, is counted as time spent there.
• Mother and child periods: time as a child and time as a mother are not added together for the payments, but they are added together when deciding health supports.

Institutions and concluding years

The work-related payment applies only to the institutions in Part 1 of Schedule 1: the 29 County Homes, the Tuam Children's Home and Sean Ross Abbey. The other 13 institutions carry the general payment and health supports.

Health supports

Anyone who spent 180 days or more in listed institutions, as a mother, a child or both, qualifies for an enhanced medical card. It gives free GP care, prescribed drugs and appliances, home nursing, home help after an assessment, dental, eye and hearing services, counselling after a doctor's referral, chiropody and physiotherapy, and it is not means-tested. A person who lives outside the State can instead take a one-off health support payment of €3,000. People who received a medical card through the Magdalen Restorative Justice Ex Gratia Scheme, and people paid under section 5(1) of the Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Act 2025, cannot receive them.

Offers, the waiver, reviews and appeals

You have 6 months from the date an offer is sent to accept or reject it, and an offer you do not answer is treated as rejected. Accepting a general or work-related payment means signing a waiver: you give up any right of action against a public body about the same circumstances and end any proceedings already started. Until then you keep the right to go to court. You can ask for a review within 60 days, appeal the review decision to an appeals officer within 60 days, and then appeal to the High Court on a point of law within 28 days. The scheme pays up to €200 towards legal help with an affidavit and up to €500 plus VAT for independent legal advice on an offer.

Tax and benefits

The payments are exempt from Irish income tax, and gov.ie says they are not counted for Irish social welfare means tests or the Nursing Home Support Scheme. On 13 March 2026 the UK Government announced that the payments are not counted for UK means-tested benefits, and the Department for Work and Pensions' Pension Credit guidance lists them as fully disregarded. Elsewhere, check the local tax and benefit rules.

Figures so far

By the end of August 2026 the Payment Scheme Office had received 7,502 applications, from 26 countries: 83% from Ireland, 11% from the UK and 4% from the USA. It had processed 5,504 general and work-related payments, notified 2,209 medical card entitlements to the HSE and made 717 health support payments. Applications must arrive before 20 March 2029, the fifth anniversary of the scheme's establishment day, unless the Minister sets an earlier date by order.

Worked examples from the official booklet

• Joan, Bessborough, as a mother, 13 May 1972 to 24 May 1973 (377 days): €15,000 and a medical card.
• Éilis, Tuam, as a mother, 29 January 1958 to 16 January 1960 (718 days): €18,750 plus a work-related payment of €10,500, €29,250 in total. She lives in England, so she chose the health support payment.
• Tom, born in Roscommon County Home on 12 April 1952, left on 10 January 1953 (274 days as a child): €12,500 and a medical card.
• Mary, St. Patrick's, Navan Road, as a mother, 3 May to 3 September 1978 (124 days): €10,000, and no health supports.
• Patrick, Castlepollard, as a child, 3 April 1965 to 6 June 1967 (795 days): €20,000 and a medical card.

The calculator reproduces each result. A sixth booklet example uses a stay at Sean Ross Abbey in May 1970, but the Act gives Sean Ross Abbey a concluding year of 1969, so that period would not count under section 24; the calculator follows the Act.

Sources and methodology

Both schedules were read from the Act, checked against the booklet's table and tested against its worked examples.

• Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act 2023, sections 2, 6, 18, 24 to 31, 34 and 41 and Schedules 1 to 3, on irishstatutebook.ie.
• S.I. No. 68 of 2024 (establishment day), S.I. No. 88 of 2024 (legal costs), S.I. No. 467 of 2024 and S.I. No. 488 of 2025 (concluding years), on irishstatutebook.ie.
• Payments and Supports Available and Who Can Apply, Department of Children, Disability and Equality, on gov.ie.
• Information Booklet and Statistics Summary, August 2026, Payment Scheme Office, on gov.ie.
• Pension Credit technical guidance, Department for Work and Pensions, on GOV.UK.

Frequently asked questions

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