• Jorn Junker

  Political reporter

The House of Representatives wants to continue, under certain conditions, the method devised by Princess Laurentian to compensate victims of the benefits case. There is widespread appreciation in the chamber for the Equal Recovery Foundation, but there are conditions placed on the amounts it pays.

A wide range of parties have asked the Council of Ministers to resume and expand work in this way before the summer recess. However, it requires that the institution henceforth adhere to the recommendations of the evaluation conducted by the Ministry of Finance.

This means that more stringent requirements have been imposed on how this institution spends taxpayers’ money. For example, more money may not be paid for things that someone experienced before the time someone was the victim of a benefits case.

Compensation should also not be paid twice for the same unpleasant event. The evaluation showed that this had indeed happened. Thus, further recommendations were made to make the organization’s work more interpretable.

The House therefore supports what outgoing Foreign Minister De Vries (Benefits) has already planned: to continue the “Laurentian method” but on more stringent conditions. De Vries is still negotiating these terms with the foundation. “We are already discussing this. I expect we can reach an agreement quickly. This is important for parents.”

The party minister said in the debate that she was happy with the institution, but described it as “difficult to explain” the payment for events leading up to the benefits issue. She told the House of Representatives that continuing this method would mean additional expenses. The Freedom Party questioned this, because according to this party, choosing this path could mean savings in the government’s recovery path.

Most MPs did not have anything good to say about the government’s recovery path. Victims of the benefit case receive 30,000 euros, but if they suffer greater damages, they can always turn to the Actual Damages Commission.

Because the committee set up by the government was working slowly and arousing a lot of resistance from parents, Peter Umtzigt (National Security Council) renamed it in the discussion the “Committee of Actual Shame”. Christian Union MP Greenois said that the committee was working at a “snail’s pace at a bend.”

This is all the more reason why MPs should be happy with the independent Equal Recovery Foundation, even though, according to the Secretary of State, it is more expensive and therefore more stringent requirements should be imposed on it. MPs criticized the Secretary of State because the trial using this recovery route was halted after the assessment, leading to a lot of uncertainty among beneficiary parents who had pinned their hopes on this route.

PVV MP Mulder believes hopes have been wrongly raised among parents. The agreement was to first conduct a limited trial using this recovery route. A maximum of 300 people will be allowed to participate, and then the lessons that can be learned will be studied.

But now that there are already more than 2,000 registrations for the foundation’s recovery path, no one dares to take away the hope of these parents, the Freedom Party member said. Parents who attended the discussion emphasized that no one had told them beforehand that this road to recovery was an experience that could also be stopped.

State Minister De Vries Omtzigt promised that she would do her best to find a quick solution for parents who had already registered with the Equal Recovery Foundation, but had not yet completed the process when the evaluation showed that the path to recovery was more expensive and was inexplicable at points, according to officials.