Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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496. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the reason for the delay in appointing a Criminal Injuries Appeals Board; the person he proposes to appoint to the board; the amount of appellants currently waiting to be heard; and the longest period any individual appellant has waited for their appeal to be heard. [50196/13]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I can inform the Deputy that under the terms of Paragraph 17 of the Scheme of Compensation for Personal Injuries Criminally Inflicted I am at present in the process of appointing a new Tribunal to administer the Scheme. As the Deputy may be aware I have recently appointed a Tribunal Chairperson, Mr. John Cheatle, B.L.

I understand from the Tribunal that there are at present 43 applications awaiting an appeal hearing. However, 23 applications cannot proceed at present as the Tribunal is awaiting the submission of further documentation from the applicants concerned. I am informed that the longest appeal case on hand with the Tribunal is from 4 February, 2002. In this particular case, the Tribunal has indicated that a hearing cannot proceed as additional information is awaited from the applicant’s solicitor. The Tribunal expects that the majority of the appeal cases currently on hands will be offered hearing dates during 2014.