There was a 6 per cent increase in the number of people making personal injury claims through the Injuries Board last year.

In its annual report, the Injuries Board said the increase reflected increased economic and social activity and was not unexpected given there are more people at work, higher traffic volumes and higher footfall in public areas.

All told, the board made 11,734 awards for personal injury compensation and delivered a total of €268.4 million in compensation in 2015, compared to 12,420 awards and €281.2 million compensation in 2014.

The board said the reduction in awards was not an indication of any change to underlying claim volumes but is due to the timing of awards, with some volume from 2015 pushing into the first quarter of this year.

It said that looking forward to the end of this year, underlying award volumes will average 12,000 over a three-year period as compared to approximately 1,500 personal injury cases adjudicated in the courts annually.

Average compensation awards remained consistent with 2014 and went up by what the board said was a modest 1 per cent to €22,878.

Motor liability

It said the breakdown of awards remained steady, with motor liability accounting for 75 per cent of awards, employer liability making up 8 per cent of awards and public liability claims responsible for at 17 per cent.

Chief executive of the Injuries Board Conor O’Brien said its non-adversarial model delivered “direct savings of almost €80 million” last year, with claim processing costs now at their lowest ever level of 6.5 per cent.

By contrast, the cost of processing cases in litigation can be up to 60 per cent of the compensation awarded. The more cases that can be processed through the board without the need for litigation, the greater the impact on claim costs.