Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 2 May 2001

Vol. 535 No. 2

Written Answers - Hearing Impairment Claims.

Frances Fitzgerald

Ceist:

148 Ms Fitzgerald asked the Minister for Defence the current method of dealing with deafness compensation cases in the Defence Forces; the success of the deferment of legal hearings; the number of cases settled outside of court hearings; the total cost to date; and the breakdown of costs in these cases. [12459/01]

Minister for Defence (Mr. M. Smith):

Following the judgment of the Supreme Court in the leading Army hearing loss case of Hanley, which was delivered in December 1999, my Department in conjunction with the Chief State Solicitor's office and in consultation with the Law Society of Ireland, established an early settlement scheme, ESS, for dealing with the outstanding Army hearing loss litigation claims. The scheme operated successfully on a pilot basis during 2000 and 1,098 claims were settled by way of direct negotiations between solicitors representing plaintiffs and officials of the Chief State Solicitor's office and my Department.

Given the success of the pilot scheme, my Department expanded the ESS in January of this year. In this regard, five firms of liability loss adjusters have been engaged in order to expand the capacity of the scheme and to augment the resources of the Chief State Solicitor's office in conducting settlement negotiations.

The scheme has continued to operate successfully and the current position is that by 31 March 2001, a further 325 claims had been resolved, while I understand that settlements have been agreed with plaintiffs' solicitors in a further 350 cases. In addition, negotiations are ongoing or due to commence in a further 1,350 claims.

In relation to costs, by 31 March 2001, a total of 1,423 claims had been settled under the scheme at a cost of £9.5 million in compensation. Legal costs amounting to an additional £4.46 million has been paid in 1,366 of those claims. Significantly, this latter figure represents savings of the order of 50% of plaintiffs legal costs by comparison with claims which proceed to court.

In order to facilitate the early settlement scheme, legal claims were adjourned in the High Court in Dublin on three occasions during 2000. Claims were also adjourned in the High Courts in Kilkenny, Limerick and Dundalk during the Easter term 2000. In 2001, further adjournments have been granted in the Dublin High Court from 2 February to 8 May. Army hearing loss claims will be listed by the court for a two weeks period, from 8 May to 18 May, and for the first four weeks of the Trinity term that is, from 13 June until 11 July. The court is to then consider the question of adjournments during the Michaelmas term at the end of July.

During the periods of the adjournments, the resources of my Department and the Chief State Solicitor's office, augmented by the loss adjusters, have been dedicated to settling as many claims as is feasible under the early settlement scheme. In this regard, it is the policy of my Department to resolve the vast majority of outstanding claims under the scheme. The scheme has now reached a stage where many hundreds of plaintiffs throughout the country have had their claims resolved at fair levels of compensation, with significant savings to the exchequer in court costs. I am hopeful that the early settlement scheme will continue to operate successfully and that the vast majority of the outstanding claims will be resolved in this way.