A crushing compo bill on horizon - Wrongful convictions

THE army deafness claims fiasco was one of those relatively minor but revealing warts-and-all scandals to befall this society. It did huge and lasting damage to the army. It cost €288.7m of which €100.2m went on legal costs. 

The then chairman of the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee, Jim Mitchell, described the process as a “scam”. “Anybody who thinks this is not a scam must be blind. We are a laughing stock among defence forces around the world,” he declared. It was and is impossible to disagree with him.

Were the near 150,000 people wrongly summoned to court over fixed-notice motoring issues to seek damages and each be awarded an implausibly modest €2,000 the bill would match the deafness payout. Were the 10% of that 147,000 who were wrongly convicted to successfully sue, the final bill would put the deafness soaking in the ha’penny place.