This section applies to Republic of Ireland Claims only

Under the Statute of Limitations Acts, 1957 to 1991, the claimant normally had 3 years from the date of an accident within which to issue proceedings in which damages are being sought for Personal Injuries.

Since July 2004, before any Personal Injury Proceedings can be issued in any Court, you must first have:

made a valid Application to the InjuriesBoard.ie (previously known as PIAB)  for compensation which was registered by PIAB;

obtained either a refusal
(a) by the respondent to participate in a InjuriesBoard.ie Assessment, or
(b) by the InjuriesBoard.ie to proceed to an Assessment, or
(c) by either the Applicant or the Respondent to accept the amount of a InjuriesBoard.ie Assessment

obtained an Authorisation Document from the InjuriesBoard.ie to issue those proceedings.

The Statute of Limitations is suspended from the date of Registration by the InjuriesBoard.ie of your  Application to the InjuriesBoard.ie for compensation as a valid Application (to which they allocate a vital Registration Number) until 6 months after the date of issue of the InjuriesBoard.ie Authorisation for the issue of Proceedings under, as appropriate, Section 14, 17, 32 or 36, rules under Section 46(3) or Section 49 of the PIAB Act. Section 50 of the  PIAB Act 2003 recites:

“ In reckoning any period of time for the purposes of any limitation period that applies in your particular case. This is a good reason for seeing a solicitor as soon as you think you may have a claim for compensation.</p> ">limitation period in relation to a relevant claim specified by the Statute of Limitations 1957 or the Statute of Limitations (Amendment) Act 1991, the period beginning on the making of an Application under section 11 in relation to the claim  and ending 6 months from the date of issue of an Authorisation under, as appropriate, Section 14, 17, 32 or 36, rules under section 46(3) or Section 49 shall be disregarded.”

There are no more simple Plenary Summonses. In the High Court, Circuit Court and District Court, since 31st March 2005, the Claimant is obliged to issue a Personal Injury Summons which must contain the mandatory details laid down by Section 10 of the Civil liability and Courts Act 2004 and as much detail as a former Statement of Claim would contain and also plead the details of the Authorisation Document which was issued by the InjuriesBoard.ie allowing you to issue those proceedings.

Under Section 7, Civil liability and Courts Act, 2004 the Statute of Limitations period has been reduced from 3 years to 2 years with effect from 31st March 2005.

The Act allowed for a “transition period” in Section 7 where the relevant date in respect of a cause of action arose before the commencement of Section 7 of the Civil liability and Courts Act 2004, (i.e. before 31st March 2005) in respect of that cause of action shall not be brought after the expiration of  2 years from the said commencement (of Section 7 of the CLAC Act on 31st March, 2005) or 3 years from the relevant date, “whichever occurs first.”

By reason of the fact that a lot of “transition period” Claims have now passed the “relevant date” and also because the rules are extremely technical we have not included any further information on these rules on this website. If however you require further information or if nearly 2 years has expired from the date of your accident and you are considering making a Personal Injury Claim for compensation in respect of that accident make sure to contact us immediately – or otherwise your Claim could become statute-barred.