Catherine Murphy
Ceist:
353. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence the amount the State Claims Agency has paid out in compensation in mass action, relating to contamination and-or poisoning, life-changing injury and death of personnel in the Defence Forces claims in the past ten years to date; and the number of claims the payments concern over that same timeframe, in tabular form. [8309/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Catherine Murphy
Ceist:
354. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence the amount paid out in third party legal costs relating to contamination and-or poisoning, life-changing injury and death to personnel in the Defence Forces claims in the past ten years to date; the number of cases that the third-party costs relate to; and the amount that each of the top five named legal firms received in over that same time period, in tabular form. [8310/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Catherine Murphy
Ceist:
355. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence the amount paid out in first party legal costs relating to relating to contamination and-or poisoning, life-changing injury and death to personnel in the Defence Forces claims in the past ten years to date; the number of cases that the third-party costs relate to; and the amount that each of the top five named legal firms received in over that same time period, in tabular form. [8311/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
I propose to take Questions Nos. 353, 354 and 355 together.
The questions raised by the Deputy could not be answered in the time allowed. The information required to provide an answer to the questions is not held by the Department.
The Deputy will be aware that all claims for personal injuries taken by current and former members of the Defence Forces have been delegated to the State Claims Agency (SCA), who manages these claims on behalf of the Minister for Defence.
The Department has engaged with the SCA in respect of your questions 8309/23, 8310/23 & 8311/23 and I will revert to the Deputy with further information in due course.
Question No. 354 answered with Question No. 353.
Question No. 355 answered with Question No. 353.
The following deferred reply was received under Standing Order 51.
I write in respect of PQs 8309/23, 8310/23 & 8311/23 which you raised with me. Unfortunately it was not possible to address your question in the time allowed as the material required had to be sourced from the State Claims Agency. I undertook to provide a response when the information became available.
Please find attached the response for your information. I regret the delay in providing the attached response.
8309/23
To ask the Minister for Finance the amount the State Claims Agency has paid out in compensation in mass action, relating to contamination and or poisoning, life-changing injury and death of personnel in the Defence Forces claims in the past ten years to date; and the number of claims the payments concern over that same timeframe, in tabular form. - Catherine Murphy
Response:
The State Claims Agency (SCA) has advised that it has made one payment in respect of one claim of this type in the last 10 years. The SCA does not comment on individual cases.
8310/23
To ask the Minister for Finance the amount paid out in third party legal costs relating to contamination and or poisoning, life-changing injury and death to personnel in the Defence Forces claims in the past ten years to date; the number of cases that the third party costs relate to; and the amount that each of the top five named legal firms received in over that same time period, in tabular form. - Catherine Murphy
Response:
The SCA has advised that it has not paid any Plaintiff Legal Costs in respect of this type of claim since 2012.
8311/23
To ask the Minister for Finance the amount paid out in first party legal costs relating to relating to contamination and or poisoning, life-changing injury and death to personnel in the Defence Forces claims in the past ten years to date; the number of cases that the third party costs relate to; and the amount that each of the top five named legal firms received in over that same time period, in tabular form. - Catherine Murphy
Response:
Since 2012, the SCA has advised that it has paid €216,975 in Agency Legal Costs in respect of 8 claims of this type. Hayes Solicitors is the only SCA panel solicitor firm to have received payments amounting to €195,751. The remaining amount comprises of payments made to SCA panel barristers.
In providing the information for the purpose of responding to your questions the State Claims Agency provided my Department with an explanation as to its systems criteria selection to extract the information from its data base. I have set this out below for you which may be of assistance.
SCA criteria section:
The information contained was extracted from the National Incident Management System (NIMS) according to the below criteria:
• Claims have been identified by using a combination of searches using key words relating to contamination and poisoning on a number of fields on NIMS.
• A manual review was carried out on the resulting list of claims by relevant SCA unit to determine their relevance to the questions being asked.
• Note, all relevant claims are included regardless of the severity of the injury to avoid any claims being inadvertently excluded arising from the interpretation as to what constitutes a “life-changing injury”.
