On Tuesday of this week, the Minister for Justice Equality and Defence, Alan Shatter T.D. announced that the Government had approved proposals to prepare legislation to give courts new powers to make periodic payment orders for the benefit of persons catastrophically injured through the negligence of others.The Minister noted that accessing the adequacy of damages has been difficult to date given the uncertainties affecting a person’s future circumstances and issues such as investment returns and inflation rates.The Minister further noted that the danger with the lump sum approach was that it could lead to circumstances where a person is over compensated or under compensated and in the current system of providing a lump sum payment, the injured party may exhaust his fund by exceeding his/her life expectancy.The drafting of the General Scheme of the Civil Liability (Amendment) Bill is due to commence shortly which will take account of the recommendations of the Report of the High court Working Group on Medical Negligence and Periodic Payments.The full text of the press release is attached here http://www.merrionstreet.ie/index.php/2013/01/government-approves-new-powers-for-the-courts-in-personal-injury-cases/?cat=66
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