€10 million paid out to crime victims last year
The Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal awarded just over €10 million to victims of violent crime last year, its annual report shows.
This was up from €7.5 million in 2023 and represented payments to 203 applicants.
The body administers a scheme that provides compensation to victims of violent crime in the State, as well as a separate compensation scheme for prison officers who suffer personal injuries due to a violent crime experienced in the course of their duties.
Prison-officer scheme
, 120 applicants also received total awards of €4.1 million under the prison-officer scheme.
This represented a big increase from the 72 prison-officer applicants who received €1.2 million in 2023.
Writing in the report, chair Patricia Sheehy Skeffington noted that new applications made in 2024 had jumped by around 40% compared with 2023.
There were 229 new applications under the general scheme last year and 70 under the prison-officer scheme.
Fewer hearings
The report shows that more than 90% of the tribunal’s 84 appeal hearings last year were held remotely.
The body attributed the 34% drop in hearings to a focus in the two previous years on reducing a backlog that had built up.
For the same reason, the number of files sent to tribunal members was down from 805 in 2023 to 557 last year.
As well as the chair, the body is made up of qualified barristers and solicitors who work on a part-time basis. They received fees totalling €227,000 last year – down from just under €250,000 in 2023.
Legal challenges
The tribunal’s report notes that there are legal challenges currently before the courts challenging elements of the scheme on their compliance with an EU directive on compensating crime victims.
It is awaiting, in particular, a decision expected this year from the EU’s Court of Justice on questions referred to it by the High Court in the case of .
The questions centre on the nature and extent of any obligations, if any, placed on EU member states, in giving effect to the provisions of the directive, to provide for non-material losses, such as those related to pain and suffering.