Minor-injury awards ‘still higher in Ireland’
An analysis of personal-injury awards has found that individuals with minor neck or back injuries in Ireland receive an average of 3.9 to 4.9 times more compensation than those in England and Wales.
The report, carried out by Deloitte and the Injuries Resolution Board (IRB), covered the three years from 2022 to 2024.
It looked at awards from the board, as well as average compensation levels from settlements made by three major insurers in Ireland, under the Personal Injuries Guidelines.
IRB awards 3.9 times higher
was commissioned by Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Peter Burke, who said it would feed into a review of the guidelines.
It found that the average assessment made by the IRB was 3.9 times higher than the British equivalent, while the average settlement from Irish insurers was 4.9 times higher.
The average compensation awarded for minor soft tissue injuries through the IRB was €7,377, whereas data indicates an average compensation amount of €9,106 for insurer settlements.
British measures
The Irish guidelines, introduced in April 2021, aimed to ensure greater consistency, predictability, and transparency in the assessment of personal-injury awards.
The report points out, however, that the British Government has subsequently introduced its own measures to reduce injury awards.
This, it says, has restored the relative gap between awards for soft-tissue injuries to the levels observed in a previous comparison carried out in 2018.
The study says that the average compensation awarded for minor soft-tissue injuries in Ireland increased between 2022 and 2024, while there was a reduction in general-damages awards processed through the two main portals used to process such claims in Britain.
Deloitte and the IRB add that differences between Ireland and Britain are also influenced by a range of other factors, such as the mix of settlement channels, driver behaviour and road-usage patterns, and the distribution of injury types.
Guidelines proposal
Earlier this year, the Judicial Council proposed an average 16.7% increase in awards under the guidelines.
The Government subsequently decided, however, not to bring the proposals to the Oireachtas for approval.
Earlier this month, Chief Justice Donal O’Donnell warned that a failure to update the figures would put the guidelines system itself at risk.
Minister of State Niamh Smyth said that changes introduced by the Government had had a “positive impact”, but further reforms in Britain had widened the difference in compensation levels between both jurisdictions.