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The owner of fast-food chain Supermac’s claims the judiciary is ‘letting the whole country down’ the handling of compensation cases.
Pat McDonagh told Newstalk Breakfast that there are “Santa Claus judges” who are making large awards in some cases.
“Now is the time to take action. Nothing is going to happen until someone takes action.
“All the political parties know there’s problems with the system.”
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He said that the current system is flawed and “overly favours the plaintiff.”
Mr McDonagh pointed out that the Civil Liability Act has been in place for 15 years, “but how many times have judges referred anyone who made a fraudulent claim?
“Unless laws are implemented they are no good to anyone.”
He said that small businesses are going out of business because “someone is sticking a hand in their pocket and taking their hard earned money from them.”
Mr McDonagh asked why whiplash injury pay outs are five times more in Ireland than in the UK. “Who are the judiciary answerable to?”
When people did not achieve the awards they wanted at the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) their legal representatives told them ‘we can get you more by going to court,’ he said.
“Mr McDonagh said that he had successfully beaten a number of fraudulent claims, but that in none of the cases had the judge referred the claimants for making such claims.
The money in the PIAB fund could be used to set up a specialist garda fraud division, he said.