Plan for five-year reviews of PI guidelines
The Department of Justice has published a draft bill that makes changes to the process for reviewing the Personal Injuries Guidelines.
Minister Jim O’Callaghan said that the bill’s key aim was to ensure that the process for the adoption of the guidelines was more “transparent and comprehensive”.
Last year, the Judicial Council approved a proposal for an overall increase of 16.7% in damages to be awarded for personal injuries, after a required three-year review.
The minister, however, decided not to seek approval for the increase from the Oireachtas.
Chief Justice Donal O’Donnell expressed concern last year about the failure to update the guidelines.
Revised guidelines
The General Scheme of the Judicial Council (Amendment) Bill 2026, which amends the Judicial Council Act 2019, will increase the review period for the guidelines from the current three years to five years.
The bill also includes a mechanism for the Judicial Council to reconsider revised guidelines in cases where the Oireachtas does not approve the judges’ proposals.
Under the bill, the judges’ body must consult the Injuries Resolution Board (IRB) and other stakeholders when reviewing the guidelines.
The Judicial Council’s Personal Injuries Guidelines Committee must also conduct research on damages for personal injuries, “including the level of damages awarded by courts and quasi-judicial bodies outside the State”, according to Minister O’Callaghan.
Sentencing guidelines
“In the interests of transparency, any such research should be published in a manner the committee considers appropriate and no later than the date the council submits a draft of the guidelines, or amendments it proposes to adopt, to the minister,” he stated.
The draft bill also provides for procedural amendment on sentencing guidelines necessary to comply with the requirements of the 2024 Delaney judgement on the guidelines.
It also proposed to give the minister the power to ask the Judicial Council to draw up sentencing guidelines for a particular crime area within a certain timeframe.