Who Can Claim Criminal Injuries Compensation in Ireland
Written and reviewed by Gary Matthews, solicitor. Last reviewed .
Three groups can claim criminal injuries compensation in Ireland: injured victims, people who maintain them, and dependants of someone who died. A maintainer qualifies only if the injury cost them money, and that loss needs vouching.
You don't need a conviction. The Scheme sets no citizenship or residence test either, so visitors can apply. Report the crime to An Garda Siochana without delay 03. Your assessed loss must also reach EUR 500, a threshold written into the Scheme's own published terms and conditions, in the version effective from 31 January 2025 01.
The Scheme sits alongside, and is separate from, a personal injury claim against whoever is at fault for what happened to you. Category decides if the State Scheme is open to you at all. Settle that question before you pursue any other route to compensation for injury in Ireland.
Four questions decide most eligibility cases in Ireland.
Do I need a conviction? No conviction is needed, and the Tribunal accepts applications even where no one was ever charged.
Do I need to be Irish or resident here? No, the Scheme sets no nationality or residence test, so visitors can apply on the same terms.
Must I have reported it to the Gardai? Yes, without delay, and you must keep helping the Gardai for as long as the case goes on.
Is there a minimum? Assessed loss must reach EUR 500 before any deduction is applied 03.
Each answer here comes from the Scheme's published terms and conditions, which the Tribunal applies to each application 01.
Who can claim criminal injuries compensation in Ireland?
Three groups can apply to the Tribunal under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme in Ireland, formally the Scheme of Compensation for Personal Injuries Criminally Inflicted. The injured person can apply. So can the dependants of a victim who died. Anyone responsible for that person's maintenance can also apply, where the injury cost them money 01.
Category is the first gate, and it's the one most people skip past. A parent who took unpaid leave to care for an injured teenager is a maintainer, not a victim, and applies on that basis. Getting the category right at the start shapes everything the Tribunal will ask you for later, right down to the paperwork.
The three groups the Tribunal accepts applications from
| Who can apply | On what basis | Where the detail sits |
|---|---|---|
| The injured person | Personal injury directly attributable to a crime of violence, or to helping prevent a crime or save a life | This page |
| A person responsible for the victim's maintenance | Financial loss suffered because of the victim's injury | This page |
| Dependants of a victim who died | Death directly attributable to a qualifying injury | claims made after a death |
The two ways an injury qualifies
Picking a category isn't enough. The injury itself has to arrive through one of two doors. Someone committed a crime of violence against you. Or you picked up the injury while assisting in preventing a crime, or saving a human life 01. Both doors lead to the same Scheme, and the Tribunal treats a rescuer's injury as seriously as a victim's.
The second route matters more than its low profile suggests. Someone who steps in to stop an assault comes within the Scheme. So does a person hurt while pulling someone out of danger, even though no crime targeted them personally.
What counts as a crime of violence under the Scheme?
A crime of violence is a deliberate criminal act that causes personal injury. Irish Scheme guidance treats arson and poisoning as crimes of violence. Accidents, workplace injuries and ordinary negligence fall outside the Scheme, whatever the harm done, according to Citizens Information (Updated April 2025) 03. A violent assault at work is a different case. A nurse struck by a patient, or a shop worker attacked during a robbery, suffers a crime of violence, not a workplace accident. The Scheme can apply.
Intent is the dividing line. A punch thrown in a pub, a stabbing, a sexual assault, a fire set to an occupied house, a spiked drink. Each is a criminal act aimed at causing harm, and each can found an application.
Where does that leave the injuries that don't fit? Injuries from accidents and negligence go to the Injuries Resolution Board (IRB), while injuries from crimes of violence go to the Tribunal. The IRB was the Personal Injuries Assessment Board, or PIAB, until it was renamed on 14 December 2023. Confusing the two costs applicants months. The wrong body will not forward your papers to the right one.
A detail that catches many claimants off guard: road traffic incidents sit almost fully outside the Scheme. A driver who injures you through dangerous driving is committing an offence, and the Scheme still excludes it. Only deliberate use of the vehicle lifts that exclusion 01.
In Ireland, unlike in England and Wales, there is no tariff of fixed award bands attached to named crimes. The Tribunal assesses vouched financial loss instead. So the type of crime decides whether the Scheme is open to you, not how much you get. Anyone weighing a Scheme claim or civil claim starts there.
What conditions must you meet to qualify?
Four conditions decide a Scheme application in Ireland once your category and your qualifying circumstance are settled, and each of them is testable. Report the crime to An Garda Siochana without delay, and cooperate fully with the Gardai and the Tribunal later. Then apply in time, and reach EUR 500 of assessed loss 01.
We call this the Decision-Tested Eligibility Check. Each stage maps to a rule the Tribunal has in fact applied in a published decision, rather than to a broad account of the Scheme.
- Category: are you one of the three groups the Tribunal accepts applications from?
- Cause: was your injury directly attributable to a crime of violence, or to assisting in preventing crime or saving a life?
- Conduct: did you report without delay, keep helping, and does the conduct and character rule touch your case?
- Cost: does your assessed loss reach EUR 500 before deductions?
Reporting the crime and helping the investigation
Reporting without delay is the condition applicants most often stumble over, and treating it as a box to tick is a mistake. The Scheme also requires all reasonable assistance to the Tribunal and to An Garda Siochana 01. That obligation continues long after the initial report. Where a member of the Gardai caused the injury, you report instead to Fiosru, the Office of the Police Ombudsman, which replaced the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission on 2 April 2025 01.
If you reported the assault the same night and gave a statement: the reporting condition is satisfied. The Tribunal moves straight on to the rest of the check.
If you waited weeks because you were frightened of the person who hurt you: explain the delay in writing when you apply. The Tribunal weighs the reason rather than counting days mechanically.
Helping is an ongoing duty, so answering Tribunal letters matters as much as the first Garda report. The Tribunal has dismissed applications for going quiet, and that's the single most avoidable failure in the whole process.
The EUR 500 minimum and how it is measured
No award follows where the loss falls below EUR 500. The measuring point is what makes this rule trip people up. The Tribunal measures the threshold against your assessed loss, the figure it reaches before deducting what you have already received from the offender or elsewhere. A claim assessed at EUR 660.01 clears the floor even if the sum finally paid to you is smaller 06.
Both the time limit and the money floor are hard edges, so read the time limits for applying early. The ordinary limit is three months from the date of the event. The Tribunal may admit a late application in exceptional circumstances, but only up to a maximum of two years after the event, an outer limit introduced by the 2021 amendments to the Scheme 03. Missing the three-month deadline is fixable in some cases. Missing it without a reason to offer the Tribunal usually is not, and beyond two years the discretion is not available at all.
Who cannot claim, and when is an award reduced or refused?
Several restrictions close the door, or narrow it under the Irish Scheme. Losses below EUR 500 and claims for stolen or damaged property fall outside the Scheme, as does failure to give reasonable assistance. Road traffic offences are excluded, though that exclusion is not absolute and lifts where a vehicle is used deliberately to injure. General damages for pain and suffering are not an eligibility bar at all but an exclusion from what the Scheme pays in non-fatal cases, a point Citizens Information sets out plainly 03.
Situations the Scheme excludes outright
Property is the exclusion people find hardest to accept. A phone smashed during a robbery, a coat ruined, a car damaged. None of it can be claimed from the Scheme, even where the assault that accompanied the theft clearly qualifies. Losses arising from the investigation rather than from the crime itself can sit differently: in Decision 53901 the Tribunal allowed EUR 500 for depreciation of a phone the applicant surrendered to the Gardai as evidence and did not get back until the prosecution had concluded 06.
Traffic offences carry a narrow exception rather than a blanket bar. Where a driver deliberately uses a vehicle to run a person down, the act becomes an assault carried out with a car. The Scheme can then apply.
One point the published guidance does not spell out: the current exclusions list contains no same-household bar. A shared address doesn't exclude a claim. The Tribunal does not refuse an application simply because the applicant and the offender live, or once lived, together. Earlier versions of the Scheme did carry such a rule, excluding claims where the offender and the victim were living together as members of the same household when the injury was inflicted. It was removed by the 2021 amendments to the Scheme 11. The equivalent "same roof" rule in the scheme covering Great Britain, which applied to injuries sustained before 1 October 1979, was abolished in 2019, and Northern Ireland removed its own version in 2020. That history is why the myth persists in search results.
Conduct, character and way of life
Beyond the outright bars sits a judgment call, and it works in a different way. The Tribunal may reduce or refuse an award having regard to the conduct, character or way of life of the victim 01. The Tribunal weighs the facts rather than applying a fixed bar. A previous conviction does not disqualify you, and the Tribunal applies the rule case by case on the facts before it.
If you were an innocent bystander with no part in what happened: the conduct rule has nothing to bite on. It should not feature in your application at all.
If you were injured during a fight you took part in: expect the Tribunal to examine your own role. Address it openly rather than leaving the Tribunal to discover it.
Unlike in England and Wales, in Ireland there is no published list of convictions or police disposals that rule an applicant out at once. A single judgment call does the work of that whole British list. That cuts both ways: fewer automatic bars, and less sense of where the line sits.
How the Tribunal decides eligibility in practice
Published Tribunal decisions show the rules in operation. The Tribunal publishes individual determinations by decision number and date. Reading a handful of them tells you more about who qualifies than any summary of the terms ever will. Each one records what was claimed, what was deducted, and what survived. They are not precedent, and they are not the only judicial material on the Scheme: the High Court has ruled on it in judicial review, including Bowes v Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal; Brophy v Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal [2022] IEHC 679 on the two-year limit for late applications, and Blanco v Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal [2024] IEHC 171, which produced the reference to the Court of Justice discussed below.
What the published decisions show
| Decision and date | What was claimed | What the Tribunal decided | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decision 53901, 23 January 2024 | Losses following a street robbery | Assessed at EUR 660.01, less EUR 400 already received in criminal proceedings, award EUR 260.01 | The EUR 500 floor is measured on assessed loss, not on the sum finally paid |
| Decision 51343, 23 May 2022 | Injury from a violent incident | Dismissed where the applicant left the jurisdiction and stopped responding, award nil | Cooperation is a live condition, not a box ticked at the start |
| Decision 52897, 14 October 2022 | EUR 336 of travelling expenses after an assault the Tribunal called vicious | Refused, the offender having already paid compensation and the claim falling under the floor | The seriousness of the crime does not lift a claim over the threshold |
| Decision F51061, 27 January 2024 | Fatal application made well outside the ordinary time limit | Admitted roughly 19 months after the death, on grounds of psychological trauma and residence overseas | Late applications are considered on their reasons, not refused automatically |
Why an award can be smaller than the EUR 500 floor
Decision 53901 is worth following through step by step, since it shows how the Tribunal approached a question the published guidance leaves open, though a single determination is not precedent and does not bind the Tribunal in later cases 06. The Tribunal assessed the loss at EUR 660.01. It then deducted the EUR 400 the criminal courts had already ordered. The award came out at EUR 260.01, which sits well below the EUR 500 minimum, and the claim still succeeded.
Stage four of the Decision-Tested Eligibility Check follows from that sequence. Cost is tested on the assessed figure, before deductions. A claim that looks too small after you subtract what the offender paid you may still qualify.
Decision 52897 makes the mirror point 08. The Tribunal described the assault as vicious, and refused the EUR 336 claim anyway, since the assessed figure never reached the floor. Sympathy does not create jurisdiction, and a modest claim arising from a grave crime can fail on the numbers alone.
Does your situation qualify? Common scenarios
Most eligibility questions come down to a handful of cases, and the Irish Scheme answers them consistently. Assault by a stranger, assault by someone you know, injury sustained while intervening, and injury caused outside the State cover most enquiries. Each turns on a different condition in the Scheme's terms 01.
| Your situation | Does the Scheme apply | The condition that decides it | Where to go next |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assaulted by a stranger, nobody charged | Yes | No conviction or identified offender is required | how to apply to the Tribunal |
| Assaulted by someone you know | Yes, subject to the usual conditions | Reporting without delay and full cooperation | See the conduct and character discussion above |
| Injured while stopping an attack on someone else | Yes | Assisting in preventing a crime or saving a human life | This page, second qualifying route |
| Knocked down deliberately by a car | Yes | The traffic exclusion lifts where a driver uses a vehicle deliberately | See the road traffic discussion above |
| Property damaged during a robbery | No, for the property itself | Stolen and damaged property is excluded | Claim only the personal injury losses |
| Prison officer injured on duty | A separate scheme applies | Occupation-specific scheme, distinct terms | prison officer claims |
If your case appears in the table with a yes: proof is your next task, not eligibility. Eligibility rarely fails on the rule, and often fails on proof.
If your case isn't in the table at all: work through the four stages in order. Take advice on the stage where you stall, rather than abandoning an application that may well succeed.
Each row above is general guidance rather than legal advice, and the Tribunal decides each application on the facts in front of it.
If you qualify, what can the Scheme actually pay?
The Scheme pays vouched financial loss in non-fatal cases. Medical expenses, travel to treatment, loss of earnings and other out-of-pocket costs are all covered. General damages for pain and suffering fall outside the Scheme altogether in non-fatal cases, under its published terms 01. Fatal cases are the exception: dependants may also receive an award for mental distress, capped at EUR 35,000 across all dependants, for deaths from injuries sustained on or after 1 January 2006 12.
Qualifying and getting paid well are separate things. The gap between them surprises people. An applicant with serious permanent injuries but modest receipts can end up with a small award, since the Scheme measures receipts rather than suffering.
Anything already paid to you gets taken off. From the assessed figure, the Tribunal deducts compensation ordered by the criminal courts and sums the offender has handed over directly 06.
Where a crime of violence leaves you with losses the Scheme will not reach, a personal injury claim may run alongside it. The claim runs against whoever is at fault. Read what the Scheme covers for the full picture of heads of loss.
What if your situation is not straightforward?
Awkward facts are common, not rare, and the Irish Scheme is narrower than the routes that sit around it. An applicant outside the Tribunal's remit may still have a personal injury claim. Liability in the civil courts turns on fault, rather than on if anyone committed a crime of violence 03.
Once you know if the Scheme is open to you, the next question is often whether it's the best route. Three situations tend to sit on the border. An injury caused outside Ireland is one. An injury where the Scheme's bars bite, but a negligent third party can be named, is another. So is an injury serious enough that pain and suffering dominates the whole of the loss.
Test each of those against both systems first. Comparing the two routes early costs nothing. The worst outcome is discovering after the Scheme's deadline that the other route was the right one.
How Irish eligibility rules differ from the UK scheme
Irish rules are not British rules, and answer engines mix them up constantly. Ireland runs a vouched-loss Scheme with no tariff, and no published list of disqualifying convictions, so awards track receipts rather than injury type. The scheme covering England, Scotland and Wales, run by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, pays tariff awards for the injury itself 13. Northern Ireland runs a separate scheme again. That makes cross-border guidance actively misleading here.
| Issue | Ireland | England, Scotland and Wales |
|---|---|---|
| Pain and suffering | Excluded in non-fatal cases | Paid as a tariff award |
| Award structure | Vouched financial loss only | Fixed bands by injury type |
| Criminal record | One judgment call, applied case by case | Certain unspent convictions bar an award outright, and a published points system governs the rest |
| Ordinary time limit | Three months from the incident, extendable in exceptional circumstances to a maximum of two years | Two years from the incident, extendable in limited circumstances |
| Minimum award | EUR 500 of assessed loss | Lowest tariff band |
Anyone reading British guidance and applying it to an Irish case will expect too much from the Scheme, and will be too slow to move. Both errors are costly. The second is often fatal to the application.
Can you claim if you were injured elsewhere in the EU?
Yes, through a cross-border route rather than through the Irish Scheme itself. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal is the designated Transmitting and Receiving Authority for Ireland 02. Where violent intentional crime in another member state injures a person resident in Ireland, the Tribunal passes on the application. It goes to the compensating authority in that country.
Compensation then comes from that country's scheme, on that country's rules, which may be more generous or less generous than Ireland's. The Tribunal's role is to get your application to the right place. Deciding it is someone else's job.
If the crime happened in another EU member state: apply through the Irish Tribunal as Transmitting and Receiving Authority. Expect a foreign authority to decide it.
If the crime happened outside the EU: the transmission route does not apply, so check if that country runs a compensation scheme of its own.
What is changing about who can claim and what they receive
Reform is under way, and the current rules still apply. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave judgment on 2 October 2025 in Case C-284/24, LD v Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal and Others, on a reference from the Irish High Court. It ruled that Article 12(2) of Directive 2004/80/EC "must be interpreted as precluding a national scheme on compensation to victims of violent intentional crimes which, as a matter of principle, excludes, as regards non-material harm, any compensation for pain and suffering endured by such victims". The judgment appears in full on EUR-Lex 04.
The Court accepted that member states need not provide complete reparation. Compensation must still be fair and appropriate, and must take account of the seriousness of the consequences of the crime for the victim 04.
Ireland has responded. The Government took a decision on 14 April 2026. The Tribunal then published a notice recording that the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration would shortly finalise amendments to the Scheme. Those amendments would provide for damages for pain and suffering, which the Scheme currently excludes. Guidance follows once the amended Scheme appears 01.
Separately, the Law Reform Commission's Compensating Victims of Crime project 05 asked whether the Scheme should cover general damages. It published a consultation paper in 2022, and a report in 2026. Anyone injured now should apply under the rules as they stand, since a future amendment offers no help with today's time limit.
Frequently asked questions about criminal injuries compensation eligibility
Nine questions cover most of what we are asked about the Irish Scheme. Each answer below states the position first, and then explains what the Tribunal really looks at when it decides.
Can I claim if the person who attacked me was never caught?
Yes. The Irish Scheme requires neither a conviction nor a named offender, so an unsolved assault can still found an application to the Tribunal 01.
The Tribunal does need a report made to An Garda Siochana without delay, and proof that you gave all reasonable help later. A Garda incident number, a statement, and any medical records from the time carry the application. Where no one was charged, the Garda file still shows that you reported promptly and cooperated. That is what the four conditions really test.
One aspect the official guidance does not cover: applicants often assume a closed or inactive Garda file weakens their claim. What weakens it is silence from the applicant, not delay by the Gardai.
Gather your Garda incident number and medical receipts, then work through the four eligibility conditions.
Do I have to be an Irish citizen or living in Ireland to claim?
No. The Scheme sets no test of Irish citizenship or residence. A visitor injured by a crime of violence in Ireland can apply on the same terms as a resident 01.
Where the crime happened matters, and where you come from doesn't. A tourist assaulted in Dublin comes within the Scheme, and so does a worker here on a short contract. So does a student on exchange. A crime committed aboard an Irish ship or aircraft comes within reach too. Each must still report the crime without delay, and meet the other conditions. Living abroad later doesn't rule you out. It does make helping harder to maintain.
From what we see, distance causes far more refusals than nationality ever does. Decision 51343 dismissed an application where the applicant left the country and then stopped answering letters from the Tribunal altogether 07.
If you're outside Ireland, give the Tribunal an address and email you'll still be using in a year.
Can I claim if I was assaulted by someone I live with or used to live with?
Generally yes. The current published exclusions list losses under EUR 500, traffic offences, failure to assist, property, and pain and suffering. No same-household bar appears among them 03.
Older versions of the Scheme did contain a rule excluding claims where the victim and the offender were living together as members of the same household. It was removed by the 2021 amendments 11. The equivalent British "same roof" rule was abolished in 2019. Search results frequently mix the old position with the new, which is why the belief survives. A domestic case turns on the usual conditions instead, and the published bars decide nothing here. Did you report without delay? Was there full help, and does the conduct and character rule have anything to bite on?
The published terms say one thing, but a domestic case runs differently in practice: the reporting condition does most of the work. Delay is far more common where the person at fault shares your home.
Explain any delay in writing when you apply, and take advice before you complete the form.
Does psychological injury on its own qualify?
Possibly, on the medical evidence. The Scheme compensates personal injury directly attributable to a crime of violence. The Tribunal assesses each application on the medical evidence, rather than on a fixed list of qualifying injuries 01.
Two practical hurdles stand in the way of a psychological-only claim. The first is proof, because the Tribunal works from medical evidence linking the condition to the crime. The second is the money floor. The Scheme pays vouched financial loss rather than damages for the injury itself. Counselling costs, prescription charges and lost earnings are what has to reach EUR 500.
A pattern worth knowing: the Tribunal has admitted a late application on grounds of psychological trauma, which shows it treats the injury seriously 09. That holds even under the current terms.
Ask your GP for a referral letter and keep every receipt for treatment from the outset.
Can I claim on behalf of my child?
Yes, and sometimes twice. A parent or guardian can apply on behalf of an injured child under the Irish Scheme. A parent who lost money because of the child's injury may also apply as a maintainer, in their own right 01.
Two applications can then arise from one crime. The child's claim covers losses caused by the injury. The maintainer's claim covers the parent's own pecuniary loss, such as unpaid leave taken to provide care. Where the Tribunal awards money to a minor, it has directed that the award be invested until the child turns eighteen 09.
What most parents miss: the maintainer claim is separate. It needs its own proof, and claiming for your child doesn't create the maintainer application by default.
Keep records of any earnings you lost while caring for your child.
Will a criminal record stop me claiming?
Not on its own. The Irish Scheme contains no list of convictions that bar a claim. The Tribunal may instead reduce or refuse an award, having regard to the conduct, character or way of life of the victim.
A judgment call behaves differently from a bar. The Tribunal weighs what is relevant to the application in front of it. An old conviction with no link to the crime therefore sits in a different place from taking part in it. England and Wales run a published list instead, with set refusals built in.
Where the Guidelines are silent, practice fills the gap: raising a relevant conviction yourself, with an explanation, works better than staying silent.
Tell your solicitor about any conviction before the application goes in, and explain the context.
Can I claim if the criminal court already ordered the offender to pay me?
Yes, though the amount comes off. The Tribunal deducts compensation ordered by the criminal courts, or already received from the offender. The Tribunal still measures eligibility on the assessed loss, before that deduction 06.
Decision 53901 shows the sequence. The Tribunal assessed a street-robbery claim at EUR 660.01, deducted the EUR 400 already ordered by the criminal courts, and awarded EUR 260.01. The claim cleared the EUR 500 threshold at the assessment stage. The deduction reduced the payment without destroying the entitlement.
A calculation error worth avoiding: subtracting the court-ordered sum first and concluding you fall below EUR 500 tests your claim against the wrong figure entirely.
List each loss before deductions.
Can I claim from the Scheme and bring a court case as well?
The two routes can run together, and they answer different questions. The State Scheme compensates vouched loss without proof of fault. A personal injury claim in Ireland requires a liable party, and it can include damages the Scheme does not pay.
The system guards against double recovery, rather than duplication of effort. The Tribunal takes into account anything you get from the offender, or through any other award, when it assesses your loss. Pursuing both routes therefore does not produce two full payments for the same loss. The right route depends on who was at fault, and on how much of your loss is pain and suffering.
Sequencing is the part people get wrong: the Scheme's deadline runs regardless of how a civil claim is progressing. Protect the Scheme application first.
Compare the two routes against the border situations set out above first.
What happens if I miss the three-month deadline?
A late application can still succeed, but only up to two years. The Tribunal may extend time in exceptional circumstances, subject to an outer limit of two years from the date of the event 03. Published decisions show applications admitted well outside the three-month period, where the reasons were made out 09.
Reasons carry the extension. Decision F51061 admitted a fatal application roughly 19 months after the death, inside the two-year outer limit. The grounds were psychological trauma, and the applicant living overseas. That shows a Tribunal willing to look at why an applicant could not act, rather than one counting months. Applying late without explaining the delay is a different matter, and it's the version that fails. Beyond two years, the Tribunal has no discretion to admit the application at all, so the date of the event is worth checking before anything else.
Something the deadline discussion rarely mentions: the extension is discretionary. Argue for it in writing at the point of application, rather than coming back to ask later.
Set out your reasons in full when you apply, rather than later.
Can I claim if I was sexually assaulted or abused?
Yes. Sexual assault and abuse are crimes of violence, so they come within the Scheme on the same terms as any other violent crime. You don't need a conviction, and the offender need not have been identified or charged 01.
Two points matter to many survivors. First, a report often comes long after the event. An honest explanation of the delay can still carry a late application, and the Tribunal has admitted such claims where the reasons held. Second, the injury can include psychological harm. The Scheme weighs that harm where it is attributable to the crime, on the medical evidence.
What we see: the reporting condition still applies, so tell An Garda Siochana even where a prosecution looks unlikely, and keep the incident reference.
Talk to a solicitor who can make the application sensitively and gather the medical evidence.
What to consider next
With eligibility settled, three questions often follow. Applicants who've worked through the Decision-Tested Eligibility Check tend to ask about timing, solicitors and proof, in that order.
How long does the Tribunal take to decide?
Timescales vary with the complexity of the case and the Garda file. Published decisions carry dates well after the crime, which gives a realistic sense of how long the wait can be. The Tribunal does not publish a service standard for determination times.
Do I need a solicitor to apply?
Applying without a solicitor is possible, and many people do. The Scheme makes no provision for awarding legal costs, and the Tribunal cannot award the cost of legal representation 03. So it's worth asking what help you need before you commit to anything.
What evidence should I start gathering now?
Start with the Garda incident number, medical records and receipts, proof of earnings, and a dated note of what happened while your memory is fresh. Proof gathered early is better proof, and it's the part of an application no one can rebuild later. When you have those, read how to apply to the Tribunal.
References
- Department of Justice, Terms and conditions of the Scheme, gov.ie (Updated July 2026).
- Department of Justice, Access to Compensation in Cross-Border Cases, gov.ie (Updated September 2025).
- Citizens Information Board, Compensation for victims of crime (Updated April 2025).
- Court of Justice of the European Union, Case C-284/24, Judgment of 2 October 2025, EUR-Lex.
- Law Reform Commission, Compensating Victims of Crime project page, listing the Consultation paper (2022) and the Report (2026).
- Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal, Decision 53901, 23 January 2024, published determination.
- Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal, Decision 51343, 23 May 2022, published determination.
- Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal, Decision 52897, 14 October 2022, published determination.
- Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal, Decisions F51061, 27 January 2024 and F/53762, 13 February 2024, published determinations.
- Law Society of Ireland, Find a Solicitor register.
- Law Reform Commission, Consultation Paper on Compensating Victims of Crime (LRC CP 67 – 2022), on the 2021 amendments to the Scheme, including removal of the same-household exclusion, the EUR 500 minimum and the two-year outer time limit.
- Department of Justice, Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme: Your questions answered, gov.ie.
- Ministry of Justice / Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, Criminal injuries compensation: a guide, GOV.UK.
Gary Matthews Solicitors
Medical negligence solicitors, Dublin
We help people every day of the week (weekends and bank holidays included) that have either been injured or harmed as a result of an accident or have suffered from negligence or malpractice.
Contact us at our Dublin office to get started with your claim today
