Seanad debates

Thursday, 20 November 2003

Personal Injuries Assessment Board Bill 2003: Second Stage.

 

There is an issue about the membership of the board – I am not sure if it has been addressed yet. As I understand it, the intention is to give representation to the Irish Insurance Federation, the social partners, broadly defined, and the Director of Consumer Affairs. I believe there is a feeling abroad – the representative groups of the legal profession have been mainly to the fore in making this point – that the board is a creature of the insurance industry. That would be unfortunate. If individual claimants dealing with their own cases, including chasing up expert witnesses, are obliged to deal with a system which they do not know and are confronted by defendant insurance companies which are very familiar with the system, having their own experts and legal advice, it is quite obvious there is already an inequality. We should do everything possible to undo that inequality rather than compounding it, as may be the case if the impression is given, through the members of the board or otherwise, that it is in some way a creature of the insurance industry. That should not be allowed to happen.

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