Junior finance minister Aukje de Vries has confirmed that she is willing to invest a further €2.3 billion in a new method for compensating parents caught up in the childcare benefit scandal and that the total bill is likely to be no more than €3.9 billion.

De Vries told parliament in a briefing that the outgoing cabinet will press on with the so-called Laurentien method, which compensates parents more quickly. However, she said, it will be up to the next cabinet to decide where the additional funding should come from.

The method is named after princess Laurentien, who set up the foundation to speed up compensation payments after more traditional ways of assessing financial help became bogged down in red tape.

In May, the finance ministry called a temporary halt to the system after broadcaster NOS said the total compensation package to families affected by the scandal could reach as much as €14 billion.

The method devised by the charity during the trial has resulted in an average of €128,000 in compensation for duped families, on top of other compensation that is due to them.

The scandal, which brought down the government in 2021, involved over 50,000 Dutch parents who were incorrectly accused of fraud and unjustly ordered to pay back thousands of euros in childcare benefits by the Dutch tax office.

When the project was stopped, the princess took the very unusual step of commenting on the situation in a video message to the scandal victims, saying that the foundation will keep on working on their behalf. “I have deep respect for your patience given this inhuman uncertainty,” she said in the video. “The foundation will not give up.”

Her husband Constantijn was also quick to defend his wife’s foundation, saying on social media when the story first broke that the situation is “like Groningen”.

“In what sort of world are we living in if a high payout to victims is seen as a ‘financial hit’ but not the massive cost of consultants and experts who are trying to trivialise the damage they have suffered.”