SCA spends €532m to resolve claims against State agencies

The amount spent by the State Claims Agency (SCA) in managing and resolving claims last year increased by €36.7 million or 7.5 per cent to €523.2 million.

New figures show that the total was made up of awards and settlements of €378.7 million, and an additional €144.5 million in legal costs.

The legal bill was a 22 per cent increase on the SCA’s 2021 legal spend of €117.8 million.

Plaintiff legal costs rose by 35 per cent or €23.45 million to €90.42 million. The agency’s own legal costs rose by €3.2 million to €54 million.

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The SCA deals with all personal injury actions taken against State agencies, including the HSE.,.

The bulk of the awards and settlements arise from clinical claims amounting to €289.2 million and legal costs of €84.9 million in 2022. The cost of awards and settlements from general claims last year totalled €89.5 million and an additional €59.6 million in legal costs.

The SCA’s estimated liability last year increased by €426.6m rising from €4.53 billion to €4.95 billion at the end of last year in connection to 11,204 active claims.

The estimated liability was made up of €2.8 billion in “catastrophic” clinical claims; “other” clinical claims of €1.04 billion and “general” claims of €1.09 billion.

The report states that “although clinical claims comprised only 35 per cent of the overall number of active claims at the end of 2022, they comprise 78 per cent of the overall estimated outstanding liability”.

“This is primarily due to the higher level of settlements and awards associated with clinical negligence claims when compared with general claims and in particular, the very high level of settlements in the resolution of infant cerebral palsy and other catastrophic injury claims,” the report stated.

The SCA is part of the National Treasury Management Agency.