Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I reiterate my thanks for the facilitation of these amendments. I appreciate it is not the ideal way to introduce amendments. As Senator Bacik outlined, this is the quickest way to make sure the new personal injuries guidelines could be applied as soon as possible and, most importantly, that people would start to see the benefits of these reductions. Of course, where people have genuine cases and where they have been wronged, they are entitled to damages and they will still get those.

Although it is outside my scope, the guidelines that have been set out by the Judicial Council deal with many of the soft tissue injuries and other injuries that have been causing a lot of concern, whether for play groups or the types of businesses that are suffering, and payouts have gone from averaging up to €25,000 to between €500 and €3,000. We have seen quite a significant reduction and, obviously, what we want now is to make sure that is passed on to businesses, individuals, community groups and everybody else.

This is not just myself but also the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, the Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, and the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe. All of us are working in our respective Departments but engaging with the sectors to make sure that in everything we do, the benefit is felt first and foremost by citizens, community groups and businesses. There is a Cabinet sub-committee on insurance meeting this week where we will be discussing these guidelines further, as well as the engagement the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, has had with the insurance groups. We expect this will be reflected in their own quotes as well.

As the amendments are being introduced, Senator Bacik asked where this applies. There are two parts to this in that everybody will initially go through the PIAB and only about 2% will end up in court. Anybody who is already at the court stage will be assessed under the old guidelines and the book of quantum. For anybody who has been assessed and is in the PIAB but has rejected that assessment and wants to go to court, he or she will also be assessed under the old guidelines. This applies to anybody who is currently with the PIAB but who has not reached that assessment. Looking at the figures, there are about 19,000 who are currently in the PIAB but have not been assessed, so they will benefit from the new personal injuries guidelines that have been set out. Obviously, we want to introduce them as soon as possible so they will see the benefit and we will start to see that change. It is important to have these guidelines so there is fairness and, where somebody has gone through an old system and is working on that basis, it does not suddenly change halfway through.

I forgot to mention there is a second amendment as part of Part 9. It essentially states that there will be a Judicial Council review of these guidelines in three years time. The question was asked how that would apply if there was a change. What we are simply saying is that the same approach would be taken. If somebody was in court or if somebody already had an assessment, the new guidelines we are now introducing would remain and, if there is a change in three years time under the review, the same approach would be taken. It is simply to outline that.

In terms of the timeframe, there are two commencements I will have to make. The first is the change to the Judicial Council Act and the second is based on this new part. It can only be done once this Bill is approved by both Houses and signed, so I imagine that will be in a matter of weeks. As I said, I will be meeting with colleagues from the Cabinet sub-committee on insurance and will obviously be receiving an update from the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, and others in terms of their engagement with the insurance companies.It is important that we introduce these changes, see their knock-on impact and, most importantly, that individuals, businesses, community groups and everybody negatively impacted by the high cost of insurance see a reduction in that cost. If we do not see that a reduction, I will review changes by the end of this year. If there are no changes by that stage, we will have to look at other options. I assure Senators of that.