Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

With court awards we want to arrive at a state of consistency in the awards being given. There are a number of processes under way to achieve that consistency, bearing in mind the separation of powers and the fact the Government cannot directly intervene in awards. One of the pieces of work being done by the personal injuries commission is to bring about international benchmarking and greater granularity in how we judge different grades of whiplash and affixing a standard sum to cover that. That is the work of the commission and it will publish it in tandem with the book of quantum. We hope it will be a guide for the Judiciary when it makes awards for claims but we must also reform the book of quantum. We want ownership of the book of quantum by the Judiciary, as it is in the UK, and discussions are under way to try to achieve that. It will be a longer-term process.

That kind of work has been done to try to bring about more information both in a medical sense and with regard to the standard practice across Europe to better inform the Judiciary about the awards that might be given. The Judicial Council Bill provides for the establishment of a judicial council that would establish best practice for the education, support and training of judges, and provide a code of conduct for and a structure to deal with complaints about judges. The Judicial Council Bill, in combination with the work of the personal injuries commission, the work we are going to do to strengthen the Personal Injuries Assessment Board and the work being done with the Judiciary on the book of quantum will bring that about. The Senator will have heard, as I have heard, particularly in engagement with businesses on employers' and public liability, of recent awards publicised in the papers and the concern it has raised for business people.