Injuries board denies claim of huge backlog

The head of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board has defended the service against claims of a huge backlog and dissatisfaction among would-be claimants.

CEO Patricia Byron said the new State service dealing with personal injury claims was performing "beyond our wildest expectations" by dealing with cases three times faster and four times more cheaply than the old court-centred system.

Ms Byron accused some lawyers, angry at the loss of income, of trying to frustrate Piab by "kicking back" at the new system.

About €1 billion is paid in compensation cases each year and, before Piab started in July 2004, another million was paid to lawyers involved in personal injury cases.

This source of income for the legal profession has now dried up, and the number of personal injury writs issued each year has dropped from 30,000 to 4,000.

"We're at the stage where it's starting to hurt. While the majority of solicitors are getting on with life, some of those who specialised in personal injury are experiencing cash-flow problems," said Ms Byron.

The Irish Insurance Federation claimed the reason 40 per cent of claimants were rejecting Piab awards was because their solicitors were "inspiring" the rejection. "Often, the claimant would probably be happy to settle but his solicitor is focused on extracting costs," a spokesman said.

However, the Law Society said there was a great deal of frustration at delays in the new system. Its director general, Ken Murphy, called for an objective assessment of Piab's work. "No one dares to dares to question them, [ Piab], their propaganda is so strong.

"Yet there are issues about the number of cases on their books and the time it takes to process them."

Mr Murphy defended the involvement of solicitors in 90 per cent of claims made to Piab, saying this would ensure that applications were made more quickly and would result in higher awards.

However, Ms Byron said the requirement for Piab to deal with a claimant's solicitor, imposed last year by a High Court ruling, caused difficulties for the board because it couldn't answer queries directly from the claimant. Piab is appealing the ruling to the Supreme Court.

Ms Byron acknowledged that 12,000 of the 36,000 cases brought to Piab since it started are still pending. Some 6,000 people who contacted the service failed to register their claim, 5,000 awards have been made, 9,000 were settled by the insurance company directly and 4,000 cases, where agreement could not be reached, are heading for the courts.

Some 93 per cent of cases were being dealt with in the statutory nine-month period, she said. The remainder, often involving more complex medical issues, were being handled in a further six-month extension period allowed under the legislation.

The "acid test" proving the success of the service was the fact that motor insurance premiums had dropped 27 per cent since Piab started, she said.

However, Mr Murphy said the fall in insurance premiums had started before this, following a cyclical trend.

The culture in Ireland in relation to personal injuries had changed and there were far fewer claims than before.

The Technical Engineering and Electrical Union called for a rethink of the system, saying workers had lost out under the new arrangements.