Nelson Murray welcomes personal injury awards decision

The rejection of a Judicial Council recommendation to increase personal injury awards is a good decision for hard working small businesses and employers, a Fine Gael Senator has said.

Senator Linda Nelson Murray said the proposal, sent to the Justice Minister recently would only have resulted in insurance premiums going one way – up.

She welcomed its rejection as any application of the recommendation would have crippled small businesses and employers.

She was speaking after Tánaiste Simon Harris chaired a meeting of the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Insurance Reform where it was decided a proposed 16.7 per cent increase in personal injury awards would not go ahead in light of the onerous costs that such an increase would place on businesses.

This would have resulted in the lowest award of €500 going to €585 and the highest, for the most severe injuries, going from €550,000 to €642,000.

“Businesses are faced with an array of increased costs and we simply cannot add more fuel to the fire by doing something that will drive premiums up.

“I fully support anyone who has suffered a severe injury being fully compensated and taken care of, but we need to examine the lower end of the market – the smaller claims.

“As it stands, there are still so many groups and businesses that still either cannot get insurance or cannot get insurance at a fair price. I have first-hand experience of the stress of trying to source insurance like so many other businesses have,” she said.

Senator Nelson Murray runs a family business, Huckleberry’s Den in Navan. Five years ago, she was two weeks from closing when she couldn’t get insurance for the play and activity centre.