Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 29 June 2017

Select Committee on Justice and Equality

Civil Liability (Amendment) Bill 2017: Committee Stage

3:00 pm

Photo of David StantonDavid Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I move amendment No. 2:

In page 10, to delete lines 6 and 7 and substitute the following:“(b) whether the payments under the order are eligible for payment—
(i) from the Insurance Compensation Fund, or

(ii) by the Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland;”.

I have tabled this amendment following a request from the Motor Insurers' Bureau of Ireland, MIBI. The bureau noted when similar legislation was introduced in the UK some time ago, its equivalent organisation, the Motor Insurers Bureau, MIB, was not specifically designated as being "reasonably secure". This, unfortunately, led to a situation where the MIB had to provide evidence to the court in each case where a periodic payments order, PPO, was proposed for an MIB claimant to establish that payments made by the MIB under a PPO would be "reasonably secure". This situation gave rise to increased legal costs for the MIB, which were passed on to motor insurance consumers and delayed the introduction of PPOs for MIB claimants.

Following discussions with other stakeholders, including the State Claims Agency, the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, I am satisfied that, to avoid the issues which arose in the UK, an amendment should be made to the Bill clarifying that payments eligible to be paid by the Motor Insurers' Bureau of Ireland are "reasonably secure" for the purpose of making a PPO.