Food Contamination and Poisoning Claims in Ireland: Compensation, Evidence and the Routes That Actually Work in 2026

When does food poisoning become a personal injury claim in Ireland?

Food poisoning is a personal injury claim when contaminated or unsafe food causes you measurable physical harm and a food business or producer was at fault under Irish law. The bar is not "I felt rough for a day". It's bodily injury. Gastroenteritis severe enough to need medical attention, time off work, hospital admission, or onward complications such as reactive arthritis or hemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS). The same legal architecture used for a workplace or road traffic injury applies here.

Four practical elements need to line up: you ate the food, you became unwell in a way medical evidence can document, a duty was breached or a strict-liability rule applies, and the timing fits. Irish food businesses operate under General Food Law Regulation (EC) 178/2002 (2002) [1] and the Food Hygiene Regulations 2010 (S.I. 117/2010) (2010) [2]. A breach of those obligations (cross-contamination, undercooked poultry, an undeclared allergen, foreign matter in the dish) is the factual core of most claims.

This page covers illness from contaminated food. If your injury was a slip, trip, burn or accident at the restaurant or hotel rather than from the food itself, see our guide to restaurant accident claims instead. The two routes overlap on premises but turn on entirely different evidence.

Which of the three legal routes applies to your claim?

The same set of facts can give rise to up to three different legal claims. Most Irish solicitor sites discuss negligence only. That is incomplete and, for some claimants, costs them the case. We call this the Three-Route Decision Framework, and applying the wrong route to the wrong facts is the most common avoidable mistake we see.

Unlike in England and Wales, where food poisoning litigation runs primarily under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Limitation Act 1980's three-year personal injury rule, Ireland gives a claimant three statutory routes with three different limitation periods and three different defendants. Picking the right route at the start matters more than any other early decision.

A single set of facts can sometimes give rise to two or three of these routes operating in parallel. The Three-Route Decision Framework forces the analysis on each potential defendant separately at the start, when the limitation positions for all routes are still preserved.

Common-law negligence

This is the route most readers expect. It applies when a restaurant, hotel, caterer, school canteen, deli, or supermarket served food that made you ill through some breach of reasonable care. Common patterns include cross-contamination, inadequate cooking, an allergen not flagged, and food held at the wrong temperature. You must prove the breach and the link to your illness.

Strict liability under the 1991 Act

The Liability for Defective Products Act 1991 [3] implements EU Directive 85/374/EEC (1985) [4] in Ireland. A product is defective if it doesn't provide the safety persons are entitled to expect. You don't have to prove the producer was careless, only that the product was defective and caused damage. Critically, the European Communities (Liability for Defective Products) Regulations 2000 extended the Act to primary agricultural products and game, so unprocessed contaminated produce now sits inside the regime. The producer can run the development-risks defence under section 6, but in food-borne pathogen cases that defence almost never lands.

A new EU Directive 2024/2853 (Revised Product Liability Directive) [5] must be transposed by 9 December 2026. It expands the categories of liable economic operators, introduces a presumption of defectiveness in technically complex cases, and stretches the long-stop to 25 years for some latent injuries. Until transposition, the 1991 Act applies as drafted.

Tour operator liability under the 1995 Act

If your illness arose from food provided as part of a package holiday (an all-inclusive buffet, a half-board hotel meal, a contracted excursion lunch), section 20 of the Package Holidays and Travel Trade Act 1995 [6] makes the Irish tour operator strictly liable for the failure of the package. You sue in the Irish courts, in English, against an Irish company. You don't need to chase a Spanish hotel through the Spanish courts.

The Three-Route Decision Framework is the page's structural moat: the wrong route taken at the start usually cannot be corrected later because the limitation period has run on the right one. The next step is to talk through which route fits your situation before any application is filed.

How much is a food poisoning claim worth?

General damages for food poisoning are set by the digestive-system section of the Personal Injuries Guidelines (2021) [7]. The Guidelines, formerly known as the Book of Quantum until 2021, bind the Injuries Resolution Board (IRB) and every Irish court when assessing pain and suffering.

For context, the IRB awarded €168 million in compensation in 2024 [8] across 6,734 awards, with an average award of €18,967 and a median public-liability award of €13,660. Both figures sit squarely inside the moderate food poisoning bracket. A hospitalised salmonella case is therefore a typical-sized award, not an outlier. That reality contradicts the consensus that food poisoning is "low-value" litigation.

Multi-injury uplift

Where food poisoning triggers a separate distinct injury (reactive arthritis after Campylobacter, post-infectious IBS, kidney damage from STEC), the trial judge does not simply add brackets together. The judge identifies the dominant injury and applies an uplift to that base value to account for the additional pain, discomfort and limitations. In practice, this is how a moderate food poisoning case with lasting joint or bowel symptoms moves above the €20,000 upper limit of the moderate bracket without reaching the severe toxicosis bracket.

Status of the proposed 16.7% uplift

You may have read that Guidelines amounts went up by 16.7% in 2025. They didn't. The Judicial Council submitted a draft amendment to the Minister for Justice on 4 February 2025. Minister O'Callaghan confirmed in July 2025 that he would not bring a resolution before the Oireachtas. After the Supreme Court decision in Delaney v Personal Injuries Assessment Board [2024] IESC 10 [9], any future amendment requires Oireachtas approval, and the Action Plan for Insurance Reform 2025-2026 lists the necessary statutory change as a priority. Until then, the 2021 figures govern. We re-check this monthly.

Special damages

General damages above are only one half of the claim. Special damages are paid on top and reimburse out-of-pocket loss: lost earnings (past and future), medical bills, prescription costs, travel to hospital, childcare cover, and rehabilitation. A severe case with weeks off work and ongoing nephrology follow-up routinely exceeds the €100,000 upper general-damages figure once specials are added. See our explainer on the three categories of damages for the underlying framework.

Should I claim? An interactive self-audit

The strength of a food poisoning claim is largely predictable from six factors. Tick each that applies to your situation. The result updates as you score yourself. This is general guidance, not legal advice, and a solicitor consultation is needed before any application.

What evidence do you need (and is a lab test required)?

The single biggest myth in food poisoning claims is that you need laboratory confirmation of the exact bacteria to win. You don't. Most successful Irish claims rest on a triangulation of medical records, regulatory complaint reference, and a clean temporal link. A stool culture is helpful but not essential.

The first 72 hours: what to gather

We call this the First-72-Hours Evidence Pyramid. Medical attendance sits at the base. Regulatory complaint sits above it. Photographic, dietary and witness evidence sits on top. The whole stack is achievable in the three days while the illness is still active.

Tier 1 (Base): Medical attendance

GP, out-of-hours service, or A&E attendance within 48 hours of symptom onset. Stool sample if offered. Written symptom diary. Without this tier, no claim is viable. With it, most cases are.

Tier 2 (Middle): Regulatory complaint

FSAI online complaint via the makeitbetter form. Local Environmental Health Officer report. Keep the reference number for your evidence file.

Tier 3 (Apex): Photographic, witness, dietary

Receipts and bank-card records identifying the meal. Dish photographs. Cohort contacts (other diners who fell ill). 48-hour food diary identifying everything else eaten in the suspected window.

1. See a GP within 48 hours. A dated note recording symptoms, severity, and your best account of what you ate is the foundation of every claim. Worsening symptoms warrant A&E.
2. Request a stool sample if your GP offers one. Helpful, not essential. A negative result doesn't end the claim.
3. Report to the FSAI online or by phone (1890 33 66 77). The FSAI received 4,996 consumer complaints in 2024, of which 1,449 (29%) were suspected food poisoning [10]. The complaint reference number becomes part of your evidence file. Local HSE Environmental Health Officers investigate.
4. Preserve everything. Receipts, the dish (refrigerated, then frozen), packaging, delivery-app order history, photographs, the menu version that day, any group-chat messages with friends or colleagues who ate the same food.
5. List the witnesses. Other diners with similar symptoms transform a single-claimant case into a cohort claim and shift the causation analysis.
6. Make a written timeline. Dates and times of meals 48 hours pre-onset, when symptoms started, how they progressed, what medical contact occurred. Memory deteriorates fast under illness.

How causation actually works

Irish courts assess food poisoning causation on the civil standard of balance of probabilities, not scientific certainty and not laboratory pathogen identification. Causation can be established by inference from circumstantial evidence: the timing of symptom onset relative to a meal, the fit with the typical incubation window for a suspected pathogen, contemporaneous medical records, group illness patterns, and regulatory findings. The Personal Injuries Guidelines published by the Judicial Council apply the standard tort framework to digestive injury, and the Irish causation analysis runs on standard Donoghue v Stevenson negligence principles supplemented by the Liability for Defective Products Act 1991 [3] for product-route claims.

What this means in practice: a claimant without a positive stool culture is not shut out. Strong contemporaneous medical records, an FSAI complaint reference, a fitting incubation pattern matched to a specific meal, and any cohort evidence are together capable of carrying causation on the balance of probabilities. The role of regulatory action is significant: FSAI Closure Orders or Improvement Notices issued against the same premises in the relevant window are powerful supporting evidence. The FSAI issued 133 enforcement orders in 2024, including 115 Closure Orders [11], the second-highest annual total since the Authority was established.

Where the case turns on inference rather than direct microbiological confirmation, expert epidemiological evidence is often decisive. Solicitors will instruct an appropriate expert (often a microbiologist or public-health physician) to opine on whether the documented symptom pattern, timing, and incubation match are consistent with the suspected source on the balance of probabilities.

Group claims

If a wedding party, work canteen group, or coach tour falls ill together, the case is much stronger. Two or more people with the same temporal pattern essentially excludes the "you must have got it elsewhere" defence the food business otherwise runs. Coordinate medical attendances and a single FSAI complaint with multiple named complainants where you can.

CCTV and digital records

Restaurants aren't required to keep CCTV indefinitely. Most retain it for 7 to 30 days. Send a written GDPR data-subject access request quickly. Likewise for delivery apps. An order receipt in your account proves what you ordered, when, and from where. Screenshots first, request later.

Foreign objects and physical contamination

Not every food poisoning claim involves bacteria. The FSAI's 2024 figures show that 32% of consumer complaints concerned "unfit food" in the regulator's broad sense, which explicitly includes foreign-body contamination as well as bacterial spoilage [10]. The 2024 case file documented by the FSAI included plastic in milkshakes, metal pins in prawns, glass shards in chicken breasts and insects in burrito bowls. Cases of that kind sit comfortably inside the personal injury framework: a fractured tooth, a laceration, an ingested foreign body causing internal injury, or the psychological injury of finding a contaminant after partial consumption are all compensable. The Three-Route Decision Framework still applies. Where the contaminant entered at the producer or processor stage (a sealed product), the 1991 Act's strict-liability route is usually the strongest. Where contamination happened in the kitchen, common-law negligence is the route. Preserve the contaminant itself (do not throw it out), photograph it next to the original packaging or dish, and keep the receipt.

How does the IRB handle a food poisoning claim?

Most food poisoning claims in Ireland start at the Injuries Resolution Board (IRB), formerly known as the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) until 2023. Filing the IRB application stops the limitation clock and is mandatory before any court proceedings can begin. The exception is medical negligence, which goes direct to court.

1. File Form A. Submit to the IRB online with the Personal Injuries Summons fee. The application stops the 2-year limitation clock. You name the food business, the producer where relevant, and the tour operator if a package holiday is involved.
2. Submit Form B. Your treating GP or specialist completes the medical assessment. The IRB can't proceed without it.
3. Respondent consent. The IRB writes to the respondent. They have 90 days to consent to assessment or refuse. In 2024 the consent rate was 70%, the third consecutive year above that mark.
4. Assessment. If consent is given, the IRB assesses the claim using the 2021 Guidelines. The 2024 average assessment time was 11.2 months. Over half were issued within 9 months of consent.
5. Accept or reject. Either party can accept or reject the assessment. The 2024 acceptance rate was 50%, the highest since the Guidelines came into force. If rejected, the IRB issues an authorisation and the matter can proceed to court.

For the broader picture see our guides to what the Injuries Resolution Board does and IRB time limits and the clock-stop rule.

Typical outcome timeline

From symptom onset to resolution, a food poisoning claim that runs through the IRB and settles at assessment typically follows this path. Litigated claims that reject the IRB assessment add 12 to 24 months on top.

How long do you have to make a food poisoning claim?

Most websites cite the 2-year ordinary limitation rule from the Statute of Limitations (Amendment) Act 1991 [12] and stop there. That is incomplete for food poisoning. The 1991 product liability route gives you a third year. For a claimant whose symptoms only crystallise into post-infectious IBS or reactive arthritis 4 to 12 weeks after the original gastric episode, that extra year matters.

Unlike in England and Wales, where the Limitation Act 1980 gives three years from the date of injury for personal injury claims, Ireland's standard limit is two years from the date of knowledge under the Statute of Limitations (Amendment) Act 1991. The shorter Irish window means filing earlier matters more here than across the water.

Date of knowledge for delayed symptoms

The clock starts not when you ate the food but when you knew or ought reasonably to have known that you had a significant injury attributable to a specific defendant. A reactive arthritis diagnosis four months after a Campylobacter infection can move the date of knowledge in line with that. Where late symptoms are involved, don't assume your claim is out of time without a careful review of the medical chronology.

The clock-stop on IRB application

Filing your IRB application halts the limitation period. Given the IRB's 11.2-month average assessment time, applying early is mathematically essential if the clock is running close. Practitioners file as soon as the medical Form B is in hand, often well before the full prognosis is known, specifically to preserve the limitation position.

Children and minor claimants

The 2-year limitation runs differently for a child. Under section 49 of the Statute of Limitations 1957, the clock does not start until the claimant reaches eighteen, so a child injured at age seven has until age twenty to file. In practice, a parent or guardian can and usually should bring the claim earlier as "next friend" while the evidence is fresh. Any settlement of a minor's claim must be approved by the court (Circuit Court or High Court depending on value) under the Rules of the Superior Courts and corresponding Circuit Court rules, and the funds are typically lodged in court until the child reaches majority. The court approval process is not optional and is not a formality. For HUS-with-renal-damage cases, where children make up the majority of severe outcomes, planning the claim around future-loss valuation, life-care costs, and ongoing nephrology is the substance of the legal work.

Which pathogen made you ill, and why does it matter to the claim?

The specific pathogen shapes the case in three ways: the typical incubation window narrows the suspect meal, the severity profile sets the realistic Guidelines bracket, and the secondary-illness risk determines whether multi-injury uplift is in play. The five pathogens below account for the overwhelming majority of confirmed Irish gastroenteric illness.

Source: HSE Health Protection Surveillance Centre, Gastroenteric Disease A-Z [13], cross-referenced with FSAI scientific publications [10].

Campylobacter

Campylobacter is by some distance the most commonly confirmed gastroenteric pathogen in Ireland: 3,984 confirmed cases in 2024 per HPSC [13]. The classic vector is undercooked chicken, with a smaller share from unpasteurised milk and contaminated water. The acute illness is severe diarrhoea (often bloody), abdominal cramps and fever, lasting 5 to 7 days. The reason Campylobacter cases punch above their acute weight in claim terms is reactive arthritis, which follows in a meaningful minority of cases 1 to 4 weeks after symptoms resolve, and the rare but devastating Guillain-Barré syndrome. Where reactive arthritis or Guillain-Barré is documented, the case moves materially above the moderate digestive bracket through multi-injury uplift.

Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC)

STEC is the most consequential foodborne pathogen for compensation purposes despite its lower case count: 799 confirmed Irish cases in 2024, with hemolytic uraemic syndrome developing in roughly one in four paediatric cases per international peer-reviewed estimates. STEC is contracted from undercooked beef mince, raw or unpasteurised dairy, contaminated leafy salad and direct animal contact. Adult illness is severe bloody diarrhoea, abdominal cramps, often without high fever. In children under five and adults over sixty-five, the toxin can damage the kidneys and trigger HUS within 5 to 10 days of the acute illness. HUS-with-renal-damage cases are catastrophic injury claims and almost always involve a parallel medical-negligence question about whether the hospital recognised and managed the developing complication correctly.

Salmonella

Salmonella accounted for 391 confirmed Irish cases in 2024 [13]. Eggs, poultry, raw or undercooked meat and cross-contaminated produce are the primary vectors. Symptoms typically begin 6 to 72 hours after exposure: diarrhoea, fever, abdominal cramps, lasting 4 to 7 days. Reactive arthritis is a recognised long-term complication, particularly in adults with the HLA-B27 genetic marker. Severe Salmonella infections in immunocompromised claimants can lead to bacteraemia and sepsis, which can move the case into the severe toxicosis bracket and frequently raises a parallel medical-negligence question if hospital management was poor.

Listeria monocytogenes

Listeria caused 22 confirmed Irish cases in 2024, but the figures understate its severity: case fatality runs at roughly 20 to 30% in vulnerable groups [13]. Vectors are soft cheeses, deli meats, smoked fish and prepared salads. The incubation window is unusually long (median around three weeks, range up to 70 days), which complicates causation analysis. Single-meal attribution becomes harder when the patient has eaten dozens of meals from different sources during the relevant window. In Listeria cases, dietary diaries, supermarket loyalty-card records, and FSAI recall notices for specific products in the relevant window become particularly important. The two highest-stakes Listeria cases are those involving pregnant claimants and those involving immunocompromised adults. In pregnancy, Listeria can cross the placenta and cause miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal infection. The claim then engages both the personal injury of the mother and the more difficult question of foetal harm, which has its own legal architecture.

Norovirus

Norovirus is the most common foodborne illness in Ireland and the hardest to attribute to a specific premises. The classic vectors are shellfish (particularly raw oysters from contaminated waters), prepared cold food, and person-to-person transmission via an infected food handler. The acute illness is intense vomiting and diarrhoea over 24 to 48 hours followed by full recovery. Norovirus claims are viable but the alternative source defence runs strongest in winter months when community circulation is high. Cohort evidence (multiple diners affected from the same meal, ideally with stool sample confirmation) is often the difference between a viable Norovirus claim and one that fails.

Long-term effects: HUS, reactive arthritis, post-infectious IBS

The reason food poisoning claims often justify the upper Guidelines brackets is the secondary illness layer. A 48-hour gastric episode is one thing. Permanent kidney damage, chronic joint disease or lifelong bowel disorder is another. Irish surveillance data shows the underlying disease burden:

Source: HSE Health Protection Surveillance Centre, Gastroenteric Disease Reports 2024 [13].

Hemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS)

HUS is the most catastrophic outcome. It's most often triggered by STEC, where Shiga toxins enter the bloodstream and clog the kidneys' filtering apparatus. It causes acute renal failure and disproportionately affects young children and older adults. The lifelong implications (long-term dialysis, transplant work-up, ongoing nephrology) reframe the case from a digestive-system claim to a catastrophic injury claim with substantial future special damages.

Reactive arthritis

Reactive arthritis (sometimes called Reiter's syndrome) follows roughly 1 to 4 weeks after the acute infection. That delay is long enough that patients and even some doctors miss the link. Joint pain, stiffness, and characteristic sausage-like swelling typically affect knees, ankles and toes. It can be accompanied by ocular inflammation and urinary symptoms. In claim terms, reactive arthritis often becomes the dominant injury for uplift purposes. A moderate food poisoning that triggers chronic arthritic symptoms in a 35-year-old plumber is a different claim from a 48-hour gastric upset.

Post-infectious IBS and chronic fatigue

Severe acute gastroenteritis can permanently alter the gut-mucosal barrier, leaving lasting irritable bowel symptoms or chronic fatigue. These conditions are functional rather than structural, which is why they're sometimes dismissed during early case work. Properly evidenced through gastroenterology referral and a treating-doctor narrative, they are a recognised head of damages.

When is there a parallel medical-negligence claim?

A separate clinical-negligence claim runs in parallel when a hospital mishandles a severe food-borne infection. This is the most under-discussed part of food poisoning litigation and the part with the largest financial implications when it applies.

The classic Irish standard is set by Dunne v National Maternity Hospital [1989] IR 91 [14]: a clinician is negligent if their conduct falls below that of an equally specialist colleague of ordinary skill, and where no other practitioner of equal status would have followed the same course of action on the same clinical presentation. Unlike in England and Wales, where the Bolam test (refined by Bolitho) governs clinical negligence, Ireland applies the Dunne principles. The two tests overlap on the underlying logic, but the wording, the case law trajectory, and the burden of expert evidence differ. The Supreme Court reaffirmed the Dunne principles as the sole Irish test in Morrissey v HSE [2020] IESC 6 [15], and the High Court applied them to a delayed-diagnosis claim in AMS v Birthistle [2025] IEHC 331 [16] (involving delayed diagnosis of Visceral Leishmaniasis at St James's Hospital, where the Court found the hospital had failed to suspect the condition by mid-March 2014, four weeks into a 42-day admission). The same standard applies where a hospital fails to recognise developing HUS or to investigate severe diarrhoeal sepsis appropriately.

When to suspect a medical-negligence overlay

• Severe gastroenteritis was attributed to "a viral bug" without basic bloods or differential consideration of bacterial sepsis
• STEC infection was confirmed but the developing HUS was not monitored for or recognised in time
• Marked dehydration in a child or older adult was sent home without adequate IV resuscitation
• Empirical antibiotics were withheld where the clinical picture pointed to bacterial sepsis

If any of those apply, the case has two arms. The food-business or producer claim runs through the IRB. The clinical-negligence claim does not. It goes direct to the High Court. See our pages on sepsis misdiagnosis claims, infection control failures, and the broader medical negligence hub. Allergic reaction cases involving an undisclosed allergen sit closer to allergy-not-recorded claims and are dealt with separately.

Can you claim in Ireland for food poisoning on a package holiday?

If you fell ill on a package holiday (an all-inclusive resort buffet, a half-board hotel meal, an excursion lunch contracted through your tour operator), you can sue the Irish tour operator in the Irish courts under section 20 of the Package Holidays and Travel Trade Act 1995. The tour operator is strictly liable where the food was not "fit for purpose" or of "satisfactory quality", regardless of whether the foreign hotel itself was careless.

This matters because chasing a Spanish, Greek or Turkish hotel through its own legal system is impractical, expensive, and often hopeless. The 1995 Act collapses that problem into one defendant, one jurisdiction, and one language. The claim is paid in euro, assessed under the 2021 Guidelines, and runs through the IRB like any other personal injury claim.

Practical evidence: keep your booking confirmation showing food was part of the package, photograph the buffet line and any obvious problems, note other guests who fell ill and exchange contact details before you fly home, obtain a foreign medical attendance note if you saw a local doctor or hospital. If the bug bit hard enough to need hospital care abroad, the records from that admission are usually decisive on causation. Hotels-only and rooms-only bookings outside a package fall outside the 1995 Act and require a different analysis.

What defences will the food business raise (and how do you counter them)?

Food businesses and their insurers raise the same handful of defences in almost every food poisoning claim. Knowing them in advance shapes how the evidence is gathered.

The alternative source defence

The defendant argues you must have got sick from something else you ate in the 48 hours before symptoms started. This is the most common defence and it is why a written 48-hour food diary, taken at first GP attendance, is so important. Where the suspect meal contained a known high-risk food (poultry, raw seafood, soft cheese, leafy salad) and no comparable item appears elsewhere in the diary, the alternative source defence loses traction quickly. Cohort claims (other diners with matching symptoms) collapse the defence almost entirely.

The development risks defence (1991 Act, section 6)

Under section 6 of the Liability for Defective Products Act 1991, a producer can defend a strict-liability claim by showing the state of scientific and technical knowledge at the time the product was placed on the market was not such that the defect could have been discovered. This is the so-called development risks defence. In food-borne pathogen cases the defence almost never succeeds, because pathogen detection in food production has been routine since the 1990s. The defence is more relevant in novel-ingredient cases (a new processing technique, a new fortification compound) than in classic Salmonella, E. coli or Listeria contamination.

Individual susceptibility

The defendant argues your reaction reflects a pre-existing condition or unusual sensitivity, not their food's defectiveness. Irish law applies the eggshell-skull principle: the defendant takes the claimant as they find them. A claimant with Crohn's disease, immunosuppression, or another vulnerability who suffers a worse course of food poisoning than an average person can still recover full damages for the worsened course. The defence does not extinguish the claim. It is a quantum argument, not a liability argument.

The community Norovirus defence

In winter months, defendants frequently argue that Norovirus was circulating in the community at the relevant time and the claimant simply caught it elsewhere. HPSC weekly Norovirus surveillance data can cut both ways here: a documented cluster at the suspect premises (multiple diners affected, FSAI investigation opened) is a strong counter. A general community Norovirus signal without a premises-level cluster is the weaker version of the defence and is regularly defeated by good cohort evidence.

Which court hears a food poisoning claim if it goes beyond the IRB?

If the IRB does not authorise an assessment, or if either side rejects the assessment, the matter proceeds to court. The court venue depends on the value of the claim. For personal injury claims, the District Court has jurisdiction up to €15,000, the Circuit Court up to €60,000, and the High Court has unlimited jurisdiction (per courts.ie. The €75,000 figure that sometimes appears is the general civil claim limit, not the personal injury limit). The Circuit Court personal injury limit is therefore €60,000. The thresholds matter for food poisoning because the digestive-system Guidelines brackets straddle two of them: a minor claim sits in the District Court range, a moderate claim sits in the Circuit Court (and indeed most moderate cases settle below the €60,000 PI ceiling), and severe toxicosis with long-term effects belongs in the High Court. Issuing in the wrong court can cost you costs even if liability is admitted. Most contested food poisoning litigation in Ireland is heard in the Circuit Court. The Civil Reform Bill 2025 proposes raising these limits to €20,000 (District) and €100,000 (Circuit), but those changes are not in force.

Does it matter if you contributed to the illness?

Partial fault does not bar a food poisoning claim in Ireland. Under the Civil Liability Act 1961, contributory negligence reduces the award proportionally rather than extinguishing it. Common scenarios where the defence is raised include reheating a takeaway poorly, ignoring a use-by date on a packaged product, or proceeding to eat after noticing the food was visibly off. Where the court finds a 30% contribution by the claimant, the award is reduced by 30%. Liability still rests with the food business. Unlike in England and Wales, where the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945 applies, Ireland's 1961 Act takes a similar proportional approach but uses the Irish statutory framework for apportionment.

A worked example: how the framework applies in practice

An illustrative scenario shows how the Three-Route Decision Framework operates in a complex case. None of what follows is a real client matter, and outcomes vary case by case.

Facts. Twenty-two guests attend a wedding at an Irish hotel. The hot buffet includes chicken supreme. Within 48 to 72 hours, fourteen guests develop severe gastroenteritis. Eight present to A&E. Two are admitted with bloody diarrhoea and dehydration. Stool samples on the two admissions confirm STEC O157. One of the admitted guests, aged seven, develops acute kidney injury consistent with hemolytic uraemic syndrome. She is transferred to paediatric nephrology. Her A&E referral was delayed by twelve hours after presentation to a regional hospital that initially attributed her symptoms to viral gastroenteritis without bloods.

Route analysis. The wedding party has three potential defendants and three potential routes operating in parallel. First, common-law negligence against the hotel for failure to cook chicken to safe temperature, with breach inferred from the cohort and the FSAI inspection that follows the cluster report. Second, strict liability under the Liability for Defective Products Act 1991 against the chicken supplier if the contamination originated upstream of the kitchen, with a three-year limitation and a ten-year long-stop. Third, a parallel medical negligence claim against the regional hospital for the seven-year-old's delayed HUS diagnosis under Dunne principles, bypassing the IRB entirely.

Evidence. The cohort evidence is overwhelming. A coordinated FSAI complaint with fourteen named complainants triggers an EHO investigation. Stool samples on two admissions provide pathogen identification. Hospital records, paediatric nephrology reports and follow-up renal function tests substantiate the HUS arm. Wedding photography and the catering contract identify the meal precisely.

Quantum. The adult guests sit predominantly in the moderate digestive bracket (€6,000 to €20,000). The two admitted adults move higher with multi-injury uplift if reactive arthritis develops. The seven-year-old's HUS-with-renal-damage case is in High Court territory: Guidelines digestive bracket plus uplift for kidney injury, plus substantial future special damages for nephrology follow-up. The medical negligence arm against the hospital adds further value, calculated separately under Dunne.

Why the framework matters. Treating this as a single restaurant negligence case would lose the producer route's longer limitation, miss the hospital's parallel liability for the HUS delay, and probably under-quantify the child's case. The Three-Route Decision Framework forces the analysis on each defendant separately at the start, when the limitation positions for all three are still preserved.

What mistakes weaken a food poisoning claim?

In our experience, the same handful of avoidable errors recur across cases that come to us late.

• Binning the leftover food. Refrigerate it. Then freeze it. The dish itself can be tested.
• Skipping the GP. "I just rode it out at home" is the single most damaging line in a claim file. No medical record means no contemporaneous documentation of severity, no temperature, no diagnosis. Even a brief same-week GP attendance materially strengthens the file.
• Not reporting to the FSAI. The complaint reference number is independent corroboration. It also triggers an EHO investigation that can produce a Closure Order or Improvement Notice you can later rely on.
• Over-sharing on social media. Photos of the rest of the night out, recovery posts, and holiday content during a claimed period of incapacity all get screenshotted by insurers. Social media posts have closed otherwise meritorious claims.
• Settling too early. Reactive arthritis and post-infectious IBS surface weeks later. Accepting an early offer before the full medical picture is in often forecloses substantially larger heads of damages.
• Filing late. Even where date-of-knowledge arguments are available, the practical hurdle of evidencing causation rises with every passing month. CCTV is gone, witnesses scatter, the restaurant rotates menus. Speed matters.

What does it cost to make a food poisoning claim in Ireland?

Cost transparency is one of the most-asked questions in Irish personal injury practice, and the answer for food poisoning claims has several layers. The fundamentals first: the Injuries Resolution Board application fee for a non-medical-negligence personal injury claim is €45 online or €90 by post or email per injuries.ie. That is the only fee paid to the State body to start the assessment process. For a medical-negligence overlay claim, there is no IRB fee because medical negligence claims are excluded from the IRB process and proceed directly to court.

Solicitor fees: the no-win-no-fee model

Most Irish personal injury solicitors offer a no win, no fee arrangement, also called a conditional fee arrangement, subject to the qualifying conditions in the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015. Under this model, the solicitor's professional fees are only payable if the claim succeeds. If the claim fails, you do not owe the solicitor's professional fee. You may still owe outlays (third-party costs the solicitor paid out on your behalf) depending on the terms of the retainer.

Two important Irish-specific rules apply. First, contingency fees expressed as a percentage of the damages are prohibited in Ireland under the LSRA. Solicitor fees must be charged on a time, task, or fixed-fee basis, not as a slice of the award. Second, before any retainer is signed, the solicitor must give you a section 68 letter under section 68 of the Solicitors (Amendment) Act 1994 setting out the fee structure, likely outlays, and how charges are calculated. The section 68 letter is mandatory and is your written record of the financial arrangements before any work begins.

Outlays during the case

Outlays are third-party costs that may need to be funded during the case. For a typical food poisoning claim these include the IRB application fee, the cost of medical records (often free from the HSE under data-protection access rights, but private GP and consultant records may carry an administrative fee), and the cost of medico-legal reports and expert witnesses (microbiologist, gastroenterologist, or public-health physician, depending on the case). Outlay arrangements vary between firms. Some firms fund outlays through to settlement and recover them from the award. Others ask the claimant to fund outlays as they arise, with reimbursement on success. The section 68 letter must specify the outlay arrangement.

What you recover from the other side

In Irish personal injury litigation, the general principle is that costs follow the event: the losing side pays a contribution to the winning side's legal costs. For a successful claim resolved through the IRB and accepted by both parties, the claimant typically recovers a fixed allowance for legal costs (around €700 according to the IRB's recent reports, far below the litigation alternative). For a successful litigated claim, the claimant typically recovers a much larger contribution to costs taxed by the Legal Costs Adjudicator. The IRB's 2024 Annual Report [8] notes the average litigated case costs around €19,000 in legal fees compared to roughly €2,000 through the IRB.

Court fees and other costs

If the case proceeds to court, additional court fees apply (Personal Injury Summons fees, motion fees) and the case may be subject to discovery, witness summonses, and trial preparation costs. These are typically funded by the solicitor under the no-win-no-fee arrangement and recovered from the losing side on success. Where the claim is dismissed, the claimant may be ordered to pay the defendant's costs under section 26 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 if the court finds the claim was fraudulent or dishonestly exaggerated. Honest, properly-evidenced claims rarely face this risk.

Your next steps

If you suspect a food poisoning claim, the action sequence is straightforward.

1. See your GP today and document symptoms in writing.
2. Report to the FSAI online or by phone and keep the reference number.
3. Preserve receipts, leftovers, photos, and witness contacts.
4. Speak to a solicitor about which of the three routes applies, and whether a medical-negligence overlay is in play.

To discuss your situation with us, call 01 903 6408 or use the contact form. The initial consultation is free and there is no obligation to proceed. We work on a no win, no fee basis subject to the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 qualifying conditions, which we'll explain in writing before any agreement is signed.

Before any retainer is signed, you'll receive a section 68 letter setting out the firm's fee structure, likely outlays, and how charges are calculated, in line with section 68 of the Solicitors (Amendment) Act 1994 and current LSRA professional conduct rules. The section 68 letter is mandatory in Ireland and is your written record of the financial arrangements before work begins.

Frequently asked questions

Related questions

Can I claim if I cannot identify the exact pathogen? Yes. Pathogen identification is helpful but not legally essential. Temporal evidence and regulatory context can carry causation in the absence of a confirmed lab result.

Will the IRB award the upper end of the digestive bracket for severe cases? Not without strong medical evidence of long-term effects and corroborated functional impact. The upper end is reserved for severe toxicosis with continuing incontinence and lasting impairment.

Should I accept the IRB assessment or go to court? Depends on the gap between the IRB number and the realistic court range, and the cost-and-risk profile of litigation. The 2024 IRB acceptance rate was 50%. Take advice on the specific number against your own medical picture.