Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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476. To ask the Minister for Health further to Parliamentary Question No. 45 of 1 February 2017, the criteria used by the State Claims Agency in building the actuarial models which indicated that the payment of damages from 2007 onwards would increase, plateauing in or about 2020. [17466/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The State Claims Agency has independent actuarial advisors to design and build the actuarial models and estimates for the Clinical Indemnity Scheme. Actuarial projections are part based on historical claims spend, claims activity and future reasonably foreseeable activity taking into account relevant risk factors. The actuaries provide projections to the Agency on a best estimate basis, intended to represent the expected value of the distribution of these reasonably foreseeable claims outcomes in order to predict the yearly cost of managing the Clinical Indemnity Scheme.

The Clinical Indemnity Scheme was established in 2002, and was extended to include consultants working in public hospitals from 1 February 2004. It is important to note that the introduction of a new indemnity or insurance scheme in any industry sector will necessarily see increasing numbers of claims in the new Scheme over a period of time as the claims being to 'wash through' the system. This is particularly relevant in relation to the numbers of maternity-related claims involving infants, including cerebral palsy cases, where often there is a timeline of several years from the date of the incident to the date of claim and ultimate settlement.