You won’t be surprised to find that Ireland has the highest insurance premiums in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). A day doesn’t go by without a report of another personal injury claim being thrown out of court.

Reading the reports, some claimants must think the judge has just come down in the last shower. But it’s a culture which is contributing to putting small businesses on the brink. Alongside the genuine cases settled outside court, how many if they’d made it in front of the judge might have been found out, but get away with it? They are the ones making our premiums higher.

Whiplash is not a euphemism for “chancing it” but it’s all but become that

What is even more maddening is the fact that there is such public outrage at fraudulent or excessive claims, that it might put genuine people off from claiming. Whiplash is not a euphemism for “chancing it” but it’s all but become that. There are people who suffer whiplash and other painful injuries which can last a lifetime as a result of negligence by a third party.

And they deserve compensation in such matters. You may say that if medical bills are covered, why would somebody need anything else? Well, how are we to calculate whether or not a person may have furthered their career had they not suffered the physical and possibly psychological effects of a slip, a trip or a crash by the carelessness of somebody else?

It was the most high profile of any amount of personal injury claims to have come before the courts in recent years

The recent high-profile case involving Fine Gael TD Maria Bailey magnified this daily story of people taking potentially flimsy personal injury actions. In terms of publicity, it came at the worst possible time for her. It was actually on the Sean O’Rourke Show that many of the small business owners about to be insured out of business have been telling their stories. And it was to the same broadcaster that deputy Bailey talked herself into being the talk of the country with that now-infamous interview.

It was the most high profile of any amount of personal injury claims to have come before the courts in recent years. But this one should now act as the catalyst for a long overdue bottom-up review of the claims procedure in this country and include the legal, medical as well as insurance sectors.

We all make mistakes in life

On the Bailey case, I never spoke to nor met the woman in my life but am I the only person who has been somewhat uncomfortable with the sustained personal ridicule being fired against her since then? I am not talking about the fair reporting which was just and in the public interest.

It’s the continuing public commentary, online mocking and personal abuse that is unseemly. Can we not separate her unquestionable error of judgement from having empathy for the person?

We all make mistakes in life. Yes, she is a legislator and as such must be measured by a higher bar. Yes she should have known better. And yes she could have shown some more humility and taken some personal responsibility. I am sure she knows that now. But she is a mother and her children and wider family are surely too feeling the stress and upset at the disproportionate focus and scrutiny shining on her. She didn’t kill anybody.

Election time

I have no time for people who don’t vote nor engage in politics but have plenty to say about how the country should be run. Equally it is hard to entertain those no-hopers who do run in the deluded belief they can change the world but just end up delaying election counts. Do they not have family and friends to tell them just to go out for a walk instead?