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Insurance Costs

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 12 February 2019

Tuesday, 12 February 2019

Ceisteanna (156)

Michael McGrath

Ceist:

156. Deputy Michael McGrath asked the Minister for Finance the status of recommendation No. 6 of the report on the cost of employer and public liability insurance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6419/19]

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Freagraí scríofa

Recommendation six of the Cost of Insurance Working Group’s Report on the cost of employer and public liability insurance seeks to amend section 8 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 to ensure that defendants are notified of a claim lodged against them at an earlier date than currently required i.e. a reduction from two months to one month. I am pleased to inform the Deputy that the recommendation was implemented at the end of 2018 through Section 13(2) of the Central Bank (National Claims Information Database) Act 2018, which provides for the amendments to Section 8 of the 2004 Act. This was signed by the President on 28 December 2018 and the Act was commenced in full on 28 January 2019. This will be reflected in the Cost of Insurance Working Group’s next update report, due to be published in the coming weeks.

By way of further information to the Deputy, the amendment to Section 8 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 deals with the letter of claim and the potential consequences of a failure to serve a notice in writing on the alleged wrongdoer within a prescribed period from the date of the cause of action, which was previously two months. The Cost of Insurance Working Group took the view that Section 8 should be amended to enhance the effectiveness of this statutory requirement.

The key aim of the amendment is to reduce the notification period for the serving of a letter of claim from two months to one month. Its rationale is to align the time period with data protection legislation which provides that data shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it is obtained – generally no more than one month. However an exception to this rule is where information or CCTV footage is held in the context of an investigation such as a personal injuries claim. Consequently by requiring a plaintiff to notify a defendant within one month of an alleged incident under Section 8, the defendant is being given the opportunity to identify within the data protection time limits any relevant CCTV footage they may have of the incident, and keep it beyond the one month period for investigation purposes where they believe the claim is questionable. This earlier notification period will also help a defendant prepare their defence in a range of other ways such as being able to put together more accurate employee witness statements where this is relevant. In addition, the Working Group believed that the previous wording of Section 8 needed to be strengthened in order to ensure it was used more effectively by the Courts. In this regard, the amendment means that instead of a court having the option to draw inferences from the failure to serve a letter of claim on the alleged wrongdoer within the prescribed period of time though the use of the word “may”, that it should be required to do so as a matter of course through the use of the word “shall”.

The amendment to Section 8 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 is seen as very important for small and medium businesses in particular, as when implemented they should make it easier for businesses and insurers to challenge cases where fraud or exaggeration is suspected. I might add that the amendment of Section 14 of the same Act to allow for the court to draw inferences from non-compliance with the requirement to lodge a verifying affidavit within 21 days after the lodgement of the service of the pleading concerned, as recommended in Recommendation 14 of the Report on the cost of employer and public liability, was also provided for within the Central Bank (National Claims Information Database) Act 2018. This means that both Recommendations 6 and 14 have both been fully implemented and I believe these amendments form important steps in the reform of the overall personal injuries framework.

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