You should know that the Statute of Limitation in Ireland gives you a time limit for injury compensation of two years, except for minors (people who have not attained their majority of eighteen years of age). That means that you have two years of a time limit from the date of the accident to file a claim. In medical negligence it is two years from the time you were aware that you had been harmed by the lack of duty of care. Medical Negligence claims normally take longer to settle compared with claims for injury.

In order to make injury claims in Ireland against a third party, the person you hold responsible for your injury then you must be able to prove negligence by the third party was the cause of your personal injury. In some accident claims there may be contributory negligence on your part. That is to say you may be held partly responsible or negligent for the accident which caused your personal injury. Who said that personal injuries assessment was easy?

A claim in Ireland for injury compensation always starts, except for medical negligence with filing an assessment form, known as an application for assessment to the Injuries Board. The Injuries board, previously known as the PIAB (Personal Injuries Assessment Board) was set up some years ago by the Irish Government to regulate the Personal Injury claim sector for injury compensation.

Prior to the Injuries Board being created there was just negotiation between the injured party and the Insurance Company representing the defendant responsible for your injury and if that did not work then you went to Court. Consequently there was a real divergence of awards for the same personal injury and the cost of pursuing a claim in Ireland was high. The Injuries Board, when set up, produced a claims calculator which is called a “Book of Quantum”. The Book gives approximate values that might be awarded for specific injuries. The Book is periodically updated as a PIAB annual.

It was also made possible to file accident claims in Ireland for injury compensation without having to go through a personal injury claims* solicitor. So at one stroke the Injuries board standardised the amounts awarded for accident claims and the cost of filing a personal injury claim was significantly reduced by not having to hire injury solicitors. At the beginning it was considered an outstanding success; but very quickly certain flaws were detected in the claims process. Claims news can be found through PIAB twitter. The Citizens information is a good source of interesting facts for those involved in an accident, forms and guidelines, accident injury, injuries board claims,contributory negligence and compensation for an accident.

1. The application for personal injury assessment in a very short space of time developed a significant back log to the extent that today it takes many months for the Injuries board to issue the injuries board’s assessment. .
2. Any minor or even minuscule error in your application form for your claim for compensation resulted in the injuries board rejecting your Irish claims. A wrong address or part of, or the slightly inexact name of the Insurance Company of the person you hold responsible could mean rejection of your claim for personal injury. Many months after the accident, if not years could cause you Statute of Limitation problems. Personal Injury solicitors hired early for a claim for compensation would avoid this problem. .
3. The injuries board only makes an award recommendation which you or your opposing Insurance Company can either accept or reject. The recommendation is not binding and if either party is rejecting the award then you are faced with hiring injury solicitors to either negotiate a settlement or to go to court. Accept or reject is a stressful situation. .
4. If you wait many months or more before hiring an injury lawyer after rejecting the award of claim compensation then their ability to build up a file of evidence and the availability of witnesses may be severely compromised. The witnesses may have moved and their memories may not be so reliable after time. .
5. The Book of Quantum, a kind of claim calculator, does not take into consideration the severity of your injury in the amount of compensation and in some cases the injuries board may well underscore their recommendation of personal injury compensation. Your personal injury solicitor will give you claims advice.

Clearly it makes good sense to get a personal injury solicitor on board for your personal injury claim from the beginning. So do not hesitate and either call us now for further information and to seek legal advice or fill in your contact details on the contact form (enquiry form) on the website for online claims and we will call you back at your convenience.

• Head injury
• Neck injury (often called a Whiplash injury)
• Psychological injuries
• Hip injuries
• Arm injuries
• Hand injuries
• Leg injuries
• Foot injuries

Decent claim advice and claim assessment is the key to an award of compensation in a claim for personal injury. Irish claims against the third party you hold responsible are the same everywhere. No matter what kind of accident caused the severity of your injury in Ireland, whether a road traffic accidents, traffic accident, an accident on holiday, a car accident, a personal injury claims* solicitor will explain the claims process for personal injury compensation.

So do not hesitate and either call us now for further information or fill in your contact details on the contact form (enquiry form) on the website and we will call you back at your convenience.

Legal costs are always a factor when considering whether or not to seek compensation for an injury. However there are some positives to consider. Firstly, even though in other parts of the world the legal profession is allowed to charge as legal costs a proportion or percentage of any sum awarded this is not allowed in Ireland.

If you Google for “claims news” on fees for personal injury solicitors you will get a lot of claims news and other material confirming this and other citizens information. Even the Law Society of Ireland, a body that regulates all solicitors in Ireland states that the following should be on all paper work and websites “In contentious business a solicitor may not calculate fees or other charges as a percentage or proportion of any award or settlement.”

Talk to your injury solicitors they may have some excellent ideas on the subject of legal fees that will be of interest to you.