Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We support the motion to instruct the committee to enable the Minister to bring forward these amendments on Committee Stage on Thursday, at which time we can have the substantive debate on them. The Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 is in need of reform. It is clear that the Minister agrees and his amendments speak to that. There are issues with the mismatch between the period for notification by a plaintiff to a defendant of an incident and the data protection rules governing the retention of CCTV data, which must be addressed.

The working group also identified issues with allowing the court the discretion to consider the failure to report an incident within the timeframe. Merely reducing the two months to one will not resolve this issue but it is movement in the right direction. We will deal with the substantive issue on Thursday. We will also deal with the substance of the second amendment, which relates to the verifying affidavit in a personal injuries action, compliance with that and the potential for financial penalties. We support the motion, which allows the Minister to bring these amendments forward on Committee Stage.

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