Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Will the Commissioner send us a note on that? The banks should be paying the full price for security of their cash. There was quite a battle over the years to get the price up. Maybe the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform will make a note of that. I hope we are not going soft on the banks.

In the year in question, €20.103 million was paid in compensation in 3,504 cases. Of these cases, 2,595 were occupational injuries with an average settlement of only €64, which we can discount, as these are very small. The ones I am most interested in are the €2.6 million paid out following car accidents to 373 people and the €6.2 million paid out to 234 civilians who took actions against the State following actions of the Garda, as well as people receiving moneys for accidents in Garda stations. In the year in question, 241 gardaí rightly received payments under the Garda Síochána Compensation Act, which came to €9.756 million, an average of €40,484 to each recipient. There is a note in the report that at the end of the year 1,160 of these cases were still outstanding. At a clearance rate of 241 per annum, it will take five years to clear this backlog, and it will bring the final figure to €50 million. When a garda is injured, why will it take up to five years to receive compensation? I accept some of the cases in question may be in the courts, but, in fairness to the force’s employees, most employers would try and get it expedited as far as possible. From the figures, it appears that almost 10% of the force have cases pending that have been put on the long finger. These members are still working while waiting years to be compensated. This is unfair on the individual garda.

How much of these figures are due on legal fees? Would it be a third? Will the Commissioner provide a breakdown of the amounts paid to the gardaí injured, who deserve to be compensated for protecting us in the line of duty, and the role of the State Claims Agency in this?