Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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269. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of prosecutions achieved under section 25 of the Civil Liability Act 2004 in each year since its enactment in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26930/18]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy is aware, under the provisions of the Courts Service Act 1998, management of the courts is the responsibility of the Courts Service, which is independent in exercising its functions, which include the provision of information on the courts system.

However, in order to be of assistance to the Deputy, I have had inquiries made and the Courts Service has informed me that section 25 of the Act provides that it is an offence for a person to give or adduce evidence in a personal injuries action that is false or misleading and that the person knows to be false or misleading, or to cause false or misleading evidence to be given or adduced with the intention of misleading the court. It is also an offence for a person to give false or misleading instructions or information to a solicitor or expert in relation to a personal injuries action or to cause false or misleading instructions or information to be given with the intention of misleading the court. 

The Courts Service has advised that statistics are not compiled in such a way as to provide information with regard to the number of convictions arising under section 25 of the Act. I have requested the Courts Service to examine the requirements, including system development and resource issues, needed to enable the compiling of such statistics going forward.

The Deputy will wish to be aware that the issue of fraud in the personal injuries litigation area is being examined as part of the ongoing work of the Cost of Insurance Working Group, which is chaired by my colleague the Minister of State, Deputy Michael D’Arcy, and an initial roundtable was convened by the Department of Finance in late 2017 to listen to the views of all of the key stakeholders in relation to insurance fraud. In January 2018, the Working Group produced its ‘Report on the Cost of Employer and Public Liability Insurance’ which includes a number of specific recommendations in relation to the production of statistics by An Garda Síochána and the Courts Service on complaints, investigations, prosecutions and convictions relating to fraud within the personal injuries area.

Recommendation 13 of the Working Group's employer and public liability insurance report recommends that Insurance Ireland, An Garda Síochána and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions agree a set of guidelines in respect of the reporting of suspected fraudulent insurance claims. While guidelines were published in 2004, the Working Group noted that these have only been used to a very limited extent over the years and proposed that a new set of guidelines should be developed, using the 2004 protocol as a starting point. Consultations with various interested parties on the proposed guidelines have taken place and it is anticipated that a new set of guidelines will be completed during Quarter 3 2018.

It should be noted also that the Courts Service and An Garda Síochána are engaging with my Department on an ongoing basis in relation to the recommendations of the Cost of Insurance Working Group.

The Deputy may also be interested to note that the Department of Finance issues regular quarterly updates on its website of the progress of the respective reports of the Cost of Insurance Working Group, the latest and Fifth Quarterly Progress Update having been published on 11 May 2018.