News & Insights
No reason to up costs, insurance firms told
October 18 2007 INSURANCE companies claim to have cut motor insurance premiums by up to 10pc this year and have been warned there is little justification for future increases. A survey by consultants Deloitte showed that 80pc of insurers said that they had cut premiums in 2007, the majority by up to 10pc, while one-in-10 […]
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Medical Negligence Limitation Period Reduced to 2 years
Pursuant to Section 7 of the Courts and Civil Liability Act, 2004, the limitation period to pursue a medical negligence action has been reduced from 3 years to 2 years, from the date of knowledge of the medical misadventure event. In short, as soon as you believe that you may have a medical negligence claim, […]
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Govt facing EUR250m bill for personal injury claims
Govt facing €250m bill for personal injury claims The Government is facing a bill of €250m in personal injury claims, according to the latest figures. Three-thousand six hundred people are currently taking cases against the State. 72% of claims involve the prison service, the Garda and the Defence Forces. The annual report of the National […]
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Consultants Seek Medical Court to tackle Litigation
Hospital consultants will ask the government to stem the rising cost of medical litigation by introducing a compensation body modelled on the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB). Finbarr Fitzpatrick, secretary general of the Irish Hospital Consultants’ Association (IHCA), said the only way to redress the huge insurance burden on the taxpayer and private consultants was […]
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NI drivers still paying more
Motorists in Northern Ireland are still paying significantly more for car insurance than their UK counterparts, the Automobile Association has said. According to a new insurance comparison given to the BBC by the AA, premiums in NI are at least 10% higher than the UK’s accident and theft hotspots. In the past, crime and civil […]
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Insurers should pass on savings to consumers
The chairperson of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB), Dorothea Dowling, confirmed the public’s suspicion that insurance companies were not passing on all savings to consumers, despite lower insurance for motorists at present. She put it rather more diplomatically to the Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise and Small Business yesterday when she said that insurance companies […]
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Consumer body calls for monitoring of legal profession
An independent regulatory body to oversee the legal profession must now be established, the Consumers Association of Ireland has said, The association slammed recent revelations that certain solicitors, who having been paid their full fees by the Residential Institutions Redress Board, allegedly double-charged vulnerable victims of abuse. As many as 80 complaints of over-charging have […]
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Law Society rejects redress board accusations
The solicitors’ representative body, the Law Society, has rejected accusations by the Residential Institutions Redress Board that it failed to respond properly to complaints of overcharging. The RIRB claimed the Law Society could have been more proactive by warning solicitors about deducting money from victims’ compensation awards. However, the Law Society Director General, Ken Murphy, […]
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Solicitors concede they illegally deducted cash from victims of abuse
A SOLICITORS’ firm has admitted ripping off victims of abuse. Limerick firm Mc Mahon O’Brien Downes is the only one to come forward since it emerged some solicitors illegally deducted payments from clients’ compensation. The firm, which last night admitted it overcharged clients, previously earned over €8.8m after defending 1,396 army deafness claims. If it […]
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Sore Users
Recent legislation promises to revolutionise personal injury cases in Ireland. We outlines the most significant changes The Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 introduces radical changes as to how personal injury (PI) actions are conducted in Ireland. Its aims are to ensure that cases are heard promptly, false or misleading claims are identified, those responsible […]
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Shortt awarded €1.9m for wrongful imprisonment
Donegal nightclub owner Frank Shortt, who was wrongfully jailed for more than two years, has been awarded almost €2 million by the High Court.
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PIAB Not Serving Plaintiffs
Two reports last week demonstrate conclusively how yet another group of Irish consumers, namely plaintiffs in tort actions, are being ripped off. Last Tuesday, the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB), the body through which plaintiffs must now pursue tort actions, declared itself a success primarily because of the 75 per cent acceptance rate of its […]
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