Ruairí Ó Murchú
Question:15. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú asked the Minister for Justice if she will provide an update on any progress made on advancing duty-of-care legislation; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [51619/22]
View answerThursday, 20 October 2022
Questions (15)
Oral answers (4 contributions)
I wish to ask about the advancement of the duty-of-care legislation. We obviously have a huge issue regarding public liability insurance, given the impact on business, community groups and community centres.
This is a priority for me. There are 66 actions contained in the action plan on insurance reform. Thirty-four of those are the responsibility of my Department. The specific change required is probably one of the last key changes required. The Courts and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2022 was introduced last night and I will be continuing my speech on it in the next hour or two. I will be introducing an amendment to the civil liability legislation on Committee Stage. There are a number of aspects. We will reflect in primary legislation several recent court decisions that rebalance the duty of care owed by occupiers to visitors and recreational users. There will be a change to the standard to clarify that when the occupier of a property has acted with reckless disregard for a recreational user or trespasser, the standard of reckless disregard, rather than that of reasonable grounds, should apply in regard to any consideration of liability. Amendments will limit the circumstances in which a court can impose liability on the occupier of a premises where a person has entered it for the purpose of committing an offence. They will also allow for broader circumstances where it can be shown that a visitor or recreational user has voluntarily assumed a risk.
Basically, we are rebalancing to make sure there is some level of personal responsibility if a person walks into a venue or the premises of a community group or organisation whose owner has gone to reasonable grounds to secure it and make sure it is safe for people. The payouts we are seeing and the issues in the courts need to be addressed. I really hope the legislation introduced in the House yesterday will do this. We will try to have it passed through its various Stages as quickly as possible. I hope that, in time, it will have a significant impact on the overall cost of insurance.
I thank the Minister. It is necessary that the change happen as soon as possible. The problem with the public liability insurance sector is that we just do not have enough players. If we can make the ground better, it will facilitate the Government by attracting others. I hope we can get to a point where public liability insurance can be obtained by all the various organisations and businesses, and at a reasonable rate. We know there are already organisations and businesses that cannot get it for particular types of work.
It affects not only businesses but also community groups, individuals and landowners, as the Deputy has said.
The intention is that once the legislation is passed, in the same way as with the judicial council guidelines, we will start to see that impact into the overall payments in the courts. Working with the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, and others in the Department, I hope that in itself will encourage more to come into this space to provide insurance where many are struggling to get it at the moment. In all of the other actions I have mentioned, we are starting to see progress, so I expect that this will provide progress in this space as well.