Court awards to children decimated by financial crisis

MEAGRE returns on so-called “blue chip” investment products, including Irish bank shares, have decimated investments made on behalf of children catastrophically injured at birth, a legal expert has claimed.

In addition, “wildly over-optimistic” actuarial assessments of what the return on investment will be gives rise to serious under-compensation of victims, according to Michael Boylan, solicitor at Augustus Cullen Law.

Mr Boylan, an expert in medical negligence litigation specialising in birth injury claims, said he had personal knowledge of cases where portions of lump sum awards had been invested by the Wards of Court Office “in so called blue chip investments/equities including Irish bank shares” that were now “effectively worthless”.