Employers are facing a 50 per cent rise in insurance premiums this year as a result of the doubling of costs in respect of liability insurance cover, business organisation IBEC said yesterday.

IBEC said its surveys showed that liability insurance for employers rose by an average of 40 per cent last year and it expected this to rise by 50 per cent in 2002. It estimates the total cost of injury compensation will be more than €2 billion (£1.58 billion) in 2002.

The confederation's assistant director of social policy Mr Tony Briscoe yesterday called for action to address what he called inherent flaws in the Irish system of personal injury compensation.

He said there was "hard evidence" these flaws in Ireland's system of personal injury compensation were causing unsustainable costs to the economy and were grossly out of line with other European countries.

"Thirty months have elapsed since IBEC published a comprehensive set of measures, which if implemented, would address the farcical personal injury system with which those having to pay insurance in Ireland are lumbered today," said Mr Briscoe.

Among the actions proposed by IBEC in May 1999 were a personal injury assessment board to deal efficiently and effectively with genuine cases of personal injury; penalties for taking spurious claims or where cases are exaggerated; and a book of quantum, or guidelines, on general damages for particular injuries which would facilitate consistent calculation of the level of award appropriate in each particular case.

IBEC's measures included the setting up of a panel of judges trained to deal with liability matters consistently and the enactment of the 1998 Bill restricting advertising by personal injury lawyers.

It said written affidavits should be required from claimants which, if found to be erroneous, would disallow compensation.