Cork City Council paid out €25k on average in compensation in last five years
The cost of public liability payouts is up from just over €3.6m in 2011 to over €4.08m last year despite the number of claims falling from 213 in 2011 to 163 last year.
The average amount paid per claim has risen from just over €17,000 in 2011 to almost €25,000 last year.
In one case, €51,658 was paid to a person following a footpath incident on St Patrick’s Street in 2011. It was the only public liability claim on the street that year.
In another case on the street in 2013, a person received just under €25,000 after an incident involving a manhole cover.
The figures show the average legal expense per claim has soared from just over €8,000 in 2011 to just over €11,000 last year.
The details were released in response to a detailed question from Cllr Tim Brosnan (FF). He described the figures as “shocking” at a time when the city is facing a €1.6m funding shortfall, and is considering an almost 3% hike in commercial rates to plug the gap.
“The amount of money being paid out, and the consistency with which it’s being paid out beggars belief,” he said.
“It’s perverse at a time when the state hasn’t got money to house people that the city is paying out so much money in compensation. There will be genuine cases, of course. But there are a lot of spurious claims in a lot of cases.”
He called for the publication of the names and addresses of those claimants who receive a compensation payout from the State.
A breakdown of figures since 2008 shows there were 22 claims against the council for incidents on the city’s main street, St Patrick’s Street, 16 claims relating to incidents in the Grand Parade and Daunt Square areas, and nine in the Oliver Plunkett St area.
The figures also show that between 2008 and 2015, the city paid out:
- €380,000 for claims from the St Patrick’s Street area;
- €137,000 for claims from the Grand Parade and Daunt Square areas;
- And just over €60,000 for claims from the Oliver Plunkett St area.
Footpaths and structures were cited as the cause for most claims from St Patrick’s Street, with footpaths to blames in eight cases and structures in six. Potholes and manhole covers accounted for six more incidents, with steps and drains involved in two cases.
Two cases from 2014 and three from last year remain outstanding.
Footpaths (three) and structures (five) accounted for most of the claims on the Grand Parade/Daunt Square area, with three cases involving potholes, slippery surfaces involved in three cases, and steps and manhole covers accounting for two cases. Three cases from 2015 remain outstanding in this area.
And while there were no public liability claims in the Oliver Plunkett St area from 2010 to 2013, six claims in this area in 2014 cost the city €56,626.
