Page 3700 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
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Secondly, the committee found little evidence of the fact that there was some kind of floodgate opening that was producing all sorts of unwarranted claims. Certainly, there have been a few claims in the last year or so in respect of accidents relating to dog bites - the Government felt that this was an intrusion into the original intention of the legislation - but there were only a handful.
The Government pointed to the case of a man being accidentally hit by a bicycle ridden by a child. Since the presentation of the Bill, the case has been resolved by the courts, adversely to the applicant; so, there was no suggestion of a claim being available in these areas, in an unwarranted fashion, at least. Certainly, as we would all acknowledge, there are some cases where people ought not to be getting compensation; but those cases, at this stage, appear to be very small in number. At least, I have not been pointed to any large category of cases which this legislation would have addressed to prevent that occurring in the future. As I have mentioned, most of the organisations directly affected by the changes were hostile to the changes being made, particularly sporting organisations.
Madam Speaker, the committee considered the content of the legislation and recommended - it was a unanimous decision in this respect - that most of the provisions of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Bill not be proceeded with. There was certainly support for one provision in the Bill, which was a relatively minor one. It recommended, in turn, that the Government consider some further changes which were not part of the legislation but which were the subject of discussions between me and Mr Connolly.
Madam Speaker, I will refer briefly to some of the problems in the legislation. One of the changes that the legislation proposes concerns the necessity for a whole offence to be proven for compensation to be payable. At the moment, a part of an offence can constitute the basis for a claim. In this Bill, the Government was proposing that a whole offence be established. For example, a person who was chasing a criminal after a robbery and who fell and injured themselves would not have been injured as a result of an offence itself. Running away from the scene of a crime is not actually an offence unless you are being chased. The fact that a person was injured in those circumstances, clearly, at the present time, gives rise to compensation claims, because the person is injured as a result of a component of a criminal activity. The legislation proposed that that be closed off.
It was also proposed in the legislation that people should be subject to a discretion when coming before the court and that the judge, magistrate or registrar of the court should have the capacity to say, "These elements of the case are proven; nonetheless, I decline to grant this application". That discretion would override whatever provisions exist in the legislation to say that a person can or cannot have compensation. Madam Speaker, the committee had a concern about that. It felt that it should be clear on the face of the legislation whether or not a person was entitled to receive compensation. They should not have to depend on some discretion exercised by a judicial officer which may or may not go in their favour.
It was also proposed that, in certain categories of offences, an injury had to result from an act for which a charge had been laid. Those were particularly injuries resulting from animal attacks, injuries associated with bicycles and injuries associated with activities in sporting events or on the sportsfield. In those cases, an actual conviction or a charge
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