Personal injuries compensation is usually assessed by the Injuries Board, though many claims end up in court afterward. Both the Injuries Board and the courts calculate compensation on the basis of general damages, a somewhat unscientific amount awarded for pain and suffering, and special damages, which are made up of specific expenses.

A common claim special damages claim in a personal injuries case is for loss of earnings. The injured party will get a certificate from their employer calculating what earnings were lost due to the injuries suffered and the certificate will be used as evidence to support their claim. Recently,  the HSE started charging its own employees €123 for providing a certificate of loss of earnings. This was surprising as while providing the certificate involves some work for the employer, they should have the information readily available and providing it seems part of the ordinary obligations of an employer to an employee.

When I first came across the charge it I queried it with the HSE, who said it was a new standardised fee. I asked the Injuries Board if they would include such a fee in calculating special damages for a claim and they said they would not. So the injured party would either have to pay the fee themselves or risk not having an accurate loss of earnings claim.

Last week, the Injuries Board wrote to me to say that they were taking the issue up directly with the HSE.

In the meantime I had made a freedom of information request to the HSE about the introduction of the fee, with an interesting result. It appears that the HSE began to consider introducing this standardised fee in March 2013. They thought about it at a number of meetings in 2013/2014 and tax advice was taken which confirmed that vat would apply to the fee. They went ahead and introduced it.

There was a gap in documentation after 2014 until 21 September 2016 (two weeks ago), when the general manager of national payroll for the HSE sent an internal email as follows:

Following a review of the charge for Loss of Earnings calculations, it has now been agreed to abolish same effective immediately.

It does seem odd that a process was engaged in over two years to discuss and decide on the national standardised fee, but the review of it which lead to its abolition appears to have come out of nowhere and the only document about it is an email confirming the decision.

But nevertheless, the abolition of the fee is welcome (although, the email says that any existing charges which have been billed remain). Fees of this nature are unnecessary hidden costs in personal injuries claims. When the insurance industry complains about legal costs, it never breaks down the costs and it is worth drawing some attention to the State costs involved.