Compensation for fewer victims

Only one in every five crime victims who took their cases to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal last year received a payment, according to figures obtained from the Department of Justice.

The fall-off in the percentage of applicants receiving payments has occurred at a time when crime rates have increased significantly.

More than €17 million has been paid to victims of crime by the tribunal since 1998.

In 1998, 53 per cent of all cases taken to the tribunal resulted in some form of compensation payment. But in 2002 that figure had fallen to just 22 per cent.

However, according to official Garda statistics, headline crime increased by 22 per cent last year alone.

From 2000 to 2002, the incidence of some categories of crime increased by as much as 400 per cent, with serious assaults increasing almost three-fold and sexual offences also trebling.

The Law Society said the greatly reduced compensation success rate may be due to a general hardening of attitudes towards those seeking compensation for injuries sustained during crimes or accidents. The Victim Support organisation accused the tribunal of lacking transparency.

Figures obtained from the Department of Justice, which runs the tribunal, reveal €3.44 million was paid out in 2002, compared with €3.83 million in 1998. The total amount paid out between 1998 and 2002 was €17.21 million.

In 2002, 296 cases were brought with 65 of those resulting in some form of compensation payment. In 1998, 250 cases were brought before the tribunal with 132 proving successful and ending with a payment.

The Department refused to disclose details of the most significant payments on the grounds that such details would compromise the anonymity of successful claimants.

Cases are brought before the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal by the victims of crime. Unlike personal injury cases, claimants are not compensated for pain and suffering. That right was abolished in 1986.

Mr Ken Murphy, director of the Law Society, said the abolition of pain and suffering payments meant many people who had fallen victim to crime, or had been injured when seeking to prevent crime, were not entitled to compensation. "We, along with Victim Support, have been trying for years to have it reversed . . . it is certainly mean-spirited," he said.

He added that it was difficult to say why there had been such a marked fall-off in the numbers of cases with successful outcomes, but it was probably in part due to a "general hardening of attitudes towards victims of accidents and crime seeking compensation to which they are entitled under the law".

"It is beginning to seem like the victims of crime and accidents are somehow to blame [for their injuries\]," he said.

Ms Lillian McGovern, the chief executive of Victim Support, criticised the tribunal for not publishing an annual report. She said it had no website, that it lacked transparency and that very few victims of crime knew it existed.

"For example, there is a payment of £20,000 [€25,394] made to relatives when somebody is killed. Very few of the people who would come to us know about that. Because the tribunal only compensates for out-of-pocket expenses and future expenses, people who have been badly mentally affected are not compensated."