Vol. 463 No. 7
39 Mr. O'Malley asked the Minister for Social Welfare the provisions, if any, he has for recovering money which is lost to the Exchequer each year whereby supplementary welfare allowance payments are made to people with no income pending actions in the courts for personal injuries, thereby leaving the taxpayer subsidising insurance companies for other people's negligence. [7224/96]
Under existing provisions certain social insurance benefits are taken into account in assessing damages in personal injuries actions. Section 75 of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act, 1993 provides that disablement benefit or injury benefit payable in the five year period from the date of accrual of the cause of the action, be taken into account in assessing such damages.
Section 237 of the 1993 Act contains a similar provision in respect of disability benefit and invalidity pension. These arrangements are designed to ensure that people are not compensated twice for loss or earnings.
People who are involved in accidents and who have no entitlement to social welfare benefits can claim supplementary welfare allowance while they are unfit for work and pursing compensation claims. There are no provisions in legislation which would allow supplementary welfare allowance paid in these circumstances to be taken into account in assessing compensation. In 1990, an interministerial study group on the question of reducing the costs of motor insurance concluded that changing the present arrangements to enable social welfare payments to be recovered from awards would increase insurance costs which would be likely to be passed on to the public. In addition, it was considered that the savings achieved by recovering the cost of any pension or assistance paid whilst awaiting the award of compensation could be outweighed by the cost of recovery from individual clients.
From the data available from the CARA statistical system in respect of seven health boards, it is estimated that approximately £0.5 million in basic payments of SWA was paid out to some 550 clients awaiting the outcome of their compensation claims in 1994. In 1995 approximately £0.37 million was paid in basic payments to some 480 clients. Additional amounts would arise in other SWA payments, especially rent and mortgage supplements.
