IRB Documents Checklist (Ireland): Exactly What You Need for a Complete Application in 2026

What is the Injuries Resolution Board?

The Injuries Resolution Board is a self-funded statutory body created by the Oireachtas. Under Irish law, almost every personal injury claim for a motor, workplace, or public liability incident must pass through the IRB before court proceedings can begin. The IRB was set up by the Personal Injuries Assessment Board Act 2003 ^[1] and its powers were expanded by the Personal Injuries Resolution Board Act 2022 ^[2]. Unlike in England and Wales, where most injury claims move directly to pre-action correspondence under the Civil Procedure Rules, in Ireland a claim must first pass through the IRB process before it can reach court.

The Board isn't a court. It doesn't adjudicate liability in the courtroom sense, doesn't hold public hearings, and doesn't issue binding judgments in the way a judge does. Instead, it works on a paper-and-medical-evidence model: the parties submit information, the Board assesses the monetary value of the injury using the Judicial Council's Personal Injuries Guidelines, and both sides then choose whether to accept the figure.

One detail that surprises many clients: the IRB's statutory name under the 2022 Act is the Personal Injuries Resolution Board. However, the organisation trades publicly as the Injuries Resolution Board on its website, press releases, and annual reports. Both names refer to the same body and carry the same legal effect. We call this the Four-Name Problem, because the same body appears as IRB, PIRB, PIAB, and Injuries Board across different Irish sources.

What does the IRB do, and what does it not do?

The most common source of confusion in the IRB process is the mismatch between what claimants expect the Board to do and what it's actually empowered to do. The table below sets the boundaries cleanly.

How has the IRB evolved since 2003?

The name Injuries Resolution Board is the most visible change in the body's history, but it's only one point on a 20-year evolution. Mapping the key milestones clarifies how the Board arrived at its current identity.

In cumulative terms, the picture is substantial. Over its first 20 years the Board managed over 500,000 personal injury claim applications, issued nearly 200,000 assessments for compensation with a total award value exceeding €4 billion, and resolved more than 100,000 cases through accepted assessments worth €2.4 billion. It has also delivered an estimated €1.2 billion in savings through avoided legal costs IRB Press Release (July 2025). That scale is what makes the Board a genuine pillar of Irish personal injury law rather than a procedural anteroom.

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From PIAB to IRB: what changed on 14 December 2023

The Personal Injuries Assessment Board was set up in April 2004 to take low-complexity personal injury claims out of the court system. For almost two decades, the Board's role was narrow. The process ran: take an application, gather medical evidence, apply the old Book of Quantum (and later the Personal Injuries Guidelines) to produce a compensation figure, then either settle or release the claim to court.

The Personal Injuries Resolution Board Act 2022 ^[2] changed that in three commencement phases across 2023. The first phase (13 February 2023) gave the Board new retention powers over complex claims and revised the costs regime under section 51A. The second phase (4 September 2023) required every application to include a claimant signature and a medical report before the limitation clock could stop. The third phase (14 December 2023) turned on the mediation function and the name change, under the Change of Name of Board Order 2023.

The shift from Assessment to Resolution isn't cosmetic. An assessment is a one-way valuation based on paper evidence. Resolution includes mediation, where parties can work through not just value but the road to agreement (and, through mediation, even disputed liability points). That's why the law, the organisation, and the URL all changed together.

Which claims does the IRB handle, and which does it not?

The Board's jurisdiction is defined by the type of claim, not by the severity of the injury. A minor soft-tissue injury in a rear-end collision and a catastrophic workplace spinal injury both start at the IRB. So does a claim by a Garda member for a malicious injury sustained on duty, following the integration of the Garda Compensation Scheme into the IRB's caseload under the Garda Síochána (Compensation) Act 2022.

Before the 2022 Act, the Board routinely declined to assess claims for wholly psychological injuries, releasing them straight to court. Section 7 of the 2022 Act removed that discretion. The Board now retains and values claims involving anxiety disorders, PTSD, and other recognised psychiatric conditions, provided the evidence supports a formal diagnosis. IRB data shows psychiatric-injury awards rose from around 5% of awards in 2021 to around 14% of awards in the second half of 2024 RTÉ News (April 2025).

Some claims sit outside the IRB by design. Medical negligence claims (misdiagnosis, surgical error, birth injury) go straight to the High Court. Aviation and maritime claims under international conventions have their own regimes. And the Supreme Court confirmed in 2025 that a claim brought purely under section 117 of the Data Protection Act 2018 for distress caused by a data breach, without a recognised psychiatric injury, doesn't require IRB authorisation.

A detail the official guidance doesn't flag clearly: the Board also retains statutory discretion under section 17 of the 2003 Act not to assess certain claims. For example, where the injuries are too complex to value within the statutory window, or where there isn't a sufficient body of case law. In those cases, it issues an Authorisation without assessing. If you've been told the IRB is "releasing" your claim, that's usually why. For the deeper mechanics of the Section 8 notice, see our Section 8 Letter explainer.

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Who runs the Injuries Resolution Board?

The Board is an agency of the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment and reports to it through the Injuries Resolution Board Liaison Unit DETE (Updated 2025). Its statutory membership cap is eleven. Board appointments are made under the PIAB Act 2003 Part 3. The 2024 Annual Report, published in July 2025, records Tom Coughlan as Chairperson and Rosalind Carroll as Chief Executive. Karen Furlong serves as Vice Chairperson.

The Four Statutory Functions

We call the Board's modern remit the Four Statutory Functions, because post-2022 the Board no longer operates as a single-purpose assessment body. The functions are:

1. Assess personal injury claims and place a monetary value on them using the Personal Injuries Guidelines.
2. Mediate disputes between claimants and respondents under the Board's voluntary mediation service.
3. Report and research, through the statutory data analysis function added by the 2022 Act, producing Annual Reports, Personal Injuries Award Values Reports, and independent benchmarking studies.
4. Deter fraud, through section 22's offence for knowingly or recklessly providing false information, and section 20's power to refer suspected offences to An Garda Síochána Seanad Éireann (November 2022).

The Three-Arm Architecture

Operationally, those four functions are delivered through three distinct arms that readers rarely see described together. This Three-Arm Architecture is the reason a single IRB application can trigger very different processes, depending on which arm handles it.

The Assessment Division

Assessors are IRB staff who take an application with its medical evidence and produce a compensation figure using the Personal Injuries Guidelines. They don't decide liability. They don't negotiate. They apply a set valuation framework and issue a written assessment to both parties.

The Mediation Service

Mediation is a separate, voluntary, confidential service that rolled out in phases: employer liability (14 December 2023), public liability (8 May 2024), and motor liability (12 December 2024) gov.ie (December 2024). Accredited mediators work with the parties, usually by telephone, to try to reach a settlement. What's said in mediation can't be used in assessment if mediation fails, a statutory firewall similar to the one under the Mediation Act 2017.

The Independent Medical Panel

The Board keeps a roster of external, Medical Council-registered doctors who can be instructed to examine a claimant where the initial treating report doesn't give a clear prognosis. These panel doctors are independent of both the claimant's GP and the respondent's insurer. Their reports carry significant weight in the final assessment.

Where does the IRB sit in the Irish claim system?

The Irish personal injury system is built as a filter. The courts sit at the top, the IRB sits in the middle, and the accident itself sits at the bottom. A claim only reaches a judge after the IRB has either assessed it (and the parties have rejected), declined to assess under section 17, or issued an Authorisation because the respondent didn't consent. The court system is deliberately reserved for the minority of claims that need it.

The filter works. Central Bank data published through the National Claims Information Database shows claims resolved via the IRB settle faster, and with much lower legal costs, than claims resolved through litigation, at broadly similar award levels. That's why the 2024 Annual Report recorded a claimant acceptance rate of 50%, up from 48% in 2023 and 44% in 2022 Irish Legal News (July 2025).

What the timeline estimates don't account for: the 90-day respondent consent window. The Board's statutory nine-month assessment clock only starts once the respondent has agreed to let the IRB assess. If the respondent uses the full 90 days (or stays silent, which now counts as consent under the 2022 Act), that's three months added to the front end of your case before assessment even begins. For the statutory mechanics and clock-stop rule, see our IRB time limits page.

Why does the IRB exist?

The background to the Board's existence is the insurance crisis of the early 2000s. Personal injury litigation was slow, expensive, and bore heavily on motor and public liability premiums. The policy response in the PIAB Act 2003 was to route standard claims through an administrative body that could value them using a published framework, with no need for a day in court.

Two decades later, the policy rationale has sharpened rather than softened. The Board is framed in Government policy as a stabilising pillar of the Action Plan for Insurance Reform 2025–2029. The 2024 Annual Report confirms that claims resolved without litigation saved around €76 million in avoided legal costs while the Board awarded €168 million in compensation RTÉ News (July 2025). Over the Board's first 20 years it handled more than 500,000 applications, issued nearly 200,000 assessments with a total award value over €4 billion, and saved an estimated €1.2 billion in friction costs.

Those numbers matter to individual claimants because they explain why insurers and respondents increasingly consent to IRB assessment rather than fight in court. In 2024, the respondent consent rate reached 70%. A body that gets 7 out of 10 respondents to agree to independent valuation is a body the market trusts. That trust is what makes acceptance rates meaningful.

What do the 2024 figures actually tell us?

The 2024 Annual Report (published July 2025) gives the cleanest current picture of how the Board actually operates at scale IRB Annual Report 2024 (July 2025). The figures below are worth knowing before you engage with the Board because they set realistic expectations.

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The IRB and the Judicial Council Personal Injuries Guidelines

Before April 2021, the Board and the courts used the Book of Quantum, a broad-brush tariff published by PIAB itself. The Personal Injuries Guidelines ^[3] replaced that document on 24 April 2021. The Judicial Council adopted them on 6 March 2021. The Guidelines cover psychiatric damage, chronic pain, scarring, soft-tissue bands, and serious injuries with catastrophic outcomes.

Section 99 of the Judicial Council Act 2019 makes it mandatory for a court to have regard to the Guidelines when assessing damages. A judge who departs from them must give written reasons. The IRB applies the same Guidelines in the same way. This alignment is why IRB awards and court awards for similar injuries now sit within comparable ranges, a point the Supreme Court confirmed in Delaney v The Personal Injuries Assessment Board [2024] IESC 10 William Fry (May 2024) Law Society Gazette (April 2024).

The Guidelines are reviewed by the Judicial Council's Personal Injuries Guidelines Committee. A draft set of amendments proposing an overall increase of around 16.7% was published in December 2024. The amendments remain subject to the approval process. The 2026 General Scheme of the Judicial Council (Amendment) Bill, published by the Department of Justice, proposes moving to a five-year review cycle. It also requires the Committee to consult the Injuries Resolution Board when drafting updates gov.ie (February 2026).

The 2025–2029 Strategic Plan: what the IRB is becoming

In October 2025, the Board launched its second Strategic Plan (2025–2029) alongside an independent review of injury compensation in Ireland and the United Kingdom produced by Deloitte DETE (October 2025). Two themes run through the Plan and the review together.

First, the Board's research and reporting role is growing. The 2022 Act gave it a data analysis function, and the Deloitte review flagged that Irish awards for minor soft-tissue injuries remain multiples higher than comparable UK awards, even after the 2021 Guidelines. Regular benchmarking is now part of the Board's remit, which means the Board is increasingly a source of public data on Irish injury awards rather than just a processor of them.

Second, mediation is expanding. The Plan commits to extending mediation practically and technically, building on the full rollout in motor claims completed in December 2024. For claimants and respondents, that widens the realistic options at the start of a claim: you can opt in to mediation alongside assessment on the application itself.

For a claimant planning a case in 2026, the takeaways are practical. The headline nine-month assessment target is still the benchmark, but realistic planning should work from the 11.2-month 2024 average. Mediation is worth a serious look where both sides are open to resolution. And the Guidelines that determine your valuation may move: watch for the Oireachtas decision on the proposed 16.7% uplift and for any statute emerging from the 2026 Bill.

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How do you contact the Injuries Resolution Board?

The IRB handles all of its work from one service centre. There's no Dublin office, no regional branches, and no reception counter. Everything runs by post, email, online portal, or phone.

If you contact the Board to make an application, the clock stops for Statute of Limitations purposes only once the Board issues a Section 50 notice confirming the application is complete. A phone call or an incomplete form doesn't stop that clock. That procedural detail matters more than most claimants realise, which is why solicitors usually insist on documented submission by email or the online portal.

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Key IRB terms explained

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Is the IRB the same as other Irish claim bodies?

Readers often arrive at this page after being told to "contact the Injuries Resolution Board" and wonder whether that's the same as a body that handled a previous matter. It isn't. The table below separates the IRB from the five Irish bodies most commonly confused with it.

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Frequently asked questions

Related questions readers ask next

How do I actually apply to the IRB? Applications are made online at injuries.ie or by post to P.O. Box 8, Clonakilty, Cork. A signed medical report must be submitted with the application for the Statute of Limitations clock to stop. See our step-by-step how to apply to the IRB guide.

What if the IRB rejects my claim? The IRB doesn't reject claims on their merits. It may decline to assess under section 17 and issue an Authorisation instead, letting you go to court. See what happens after IRB authorisation.

How long does the IRB take? The statutory target is nine months from Section 50 notice, but the 2024 average was 11.2 months. Around half of cases run longer. See our IRB delays guide.

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References

1. [1] Personal Injuries Assessment Board Act 2003, Irish Statute Book (Updated November 2025).
2. [2] Personal Injuries Resolution Board Act 2022, Irish Statute Book.
3. [3] Personal Injuries Guidelines, Judicial Council of Ireland.
4. [4] S.I. No. 627/2023 Personal Injuries Resolution Board Act 2022 (Change of Name of Board) Order 2023, Irish Statute Book.
5. [5] Making a claim under the Garda Compensation Scheme, Injuries Resolution Board.
6. [6] Small rise in claims submitted to injuries board in 2024, RTÉ News (2 April 2025).
7. [7] Injuries Resolution Board Liaison Unit, Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment.
8. [8] Minister announces commencement of the Injuries Resolution Board's mediation service for motor liability, gov.ie (December 2024).
9. [9] Half of all awards by Injuries Resolution Board now accepted, Irish Legal News (July 2025).
10. [10] Minister Burke publishes independent report on injury compensation and launches new Injuries Resolution Board's Strategy, Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (October 2025).
11. [11] Avoidable costs worth €76m saved by injuries board, RTÉ News (9 July 2025).
12. [12] Injuries Resolution Board Annual Report 2024, injuries.ie (July 2025) [PDF].
13. [13] Supreme Court Affirms the Legality of Personal Injury Guidelines (Delaney v The Personal Injuries Assessment Board [2024] IESC 10), William Fry (May 2024).
14. [14] General Scheme of Judicial Council (Amendment) Bill 2026, Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration (February 2026).
15. [15] Review of Compensation for Minor Soft-tissue Injuries in Ireland and the UK, DETE (October 2025).
16. [16] Injuries Resolution Board, Citizens Information (Updated November 2025).
17. [17] Post-Enactment Report: Personal Injuries Resolution Board Act 2022, Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (2024) [PDF].
18. [18] Press Release: Annual Report 2024, Injuries Resolution Board (9 July 2025).
19. [19] Personal Injuries Resolution Board Bill 2022: Second Stage, Seanad Éireann debate (22 November 2022).
20. [20] Landmark decision on case 'of systemic importance' (Delaney v PIAB [2024] IESC 10), Law Society Gazette (April 2024).