PART 4

Miscellaneous

79. —(1) A notice or other document that is required to be served on or given or issued to a person under this Act shall be addressed to the person concerned by name, and may be so served on or given or issued to the person in one of the following ways:

(a) by delivering it to the person;

(b) by leaving it at the address at which the person ordinarily resides or, in a case in which an address for service has been furnished, at that address; or

(c) by sending it by post in a prepaid registered letter to the address at which the person ordinarily resides or, in a case in which an address for service has been furnished, to that address.

(2) For the purposes of this section, a company shall be deemed to be ordinarily resident at its registered office, and every other body corporate and every unincorporated body shall be deemed to be ordinarily resident at its principal office or place of business.

80. —(1) Subject to such conditions (if any) as may for the time being stand specified by the Minister for the purposes of this section, the Board may from time to time engage such consultants or advisers as it may consider necessary for the performance of its functions and any fees due to a consultant or adviser engaged pursuant to this section shall be paid by the Board out of moneys at its disposal.

(2) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) the persons who may be engaged pursuant to this section include medical practitioners, accountants and other appropriately qualified persons.

(3) Any person who wishes to be engaged by the Board as a consultant or adviser pursuant to this section may notify the Board in writing of this fact and any notification for that purpose shall include particulars of the person's qualifications and experience.

(4) The Board shall maintain a list of the persons who notify the Board pursuant to subsection (3).

(5) The Board shall, in engaging a consultant or adviser under this section, have regard to the list maintained under subsection (4), but nothing in this subsection shall be construed as precluding the Board from engaging as a consultant or adviser a person whose name is not on that list.

81. —A person guilty of an offence under this Act shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding €3,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or both.

82. —A member of staff of the Board who is a solicitor or a barrister may appear on behalf of the Board in an application under section 27 notwithstanding—

(a) any rule of law relating to the representation of bodies corporate, or

(b) that, by virtue of any rule of law or provision of any enactment or code of conduct imposing restrictions on employed solicitors or barristers in relation to engaging in activity of that kind, he or she would be prohibited from doing so.

83. —(1) The Board shall submit to the Minister, in such form as the Minister may direct, an annual report of its activities after the end of the financial year to which it relates and the Minister shall cause copies of the report to be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as practicable after the receipt by him or her of it.

(2) A report under this section shall not include information to which paragraph (c) or (d) of section 73 (4) applies.

84. —The definition of “specified body” in section 223(1) of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act 1993 (as amended by the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2003 ) is amended—

(a) in paragraph (t), by deleting “or”, and

(b) by substituting the following paragraphs for paragraph (u):

“(u) the Personal Injuries Assessment Board, or

(v) such other persons as may be prescribed;”.

85. —Schedule 13 to the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 is amended by inserting the following paragraph after paragraph 139:

“140.—The Personal Injuries Assessment Board.”.

86. —(1) This section has effect in relation to any database (a “central database”) maintained for the time being by any group of persons in which particulars are entered with respect to accidents or incidents proceedings in respect of which—

(a) may be brought,

(b) may, subject to this Act, be brought, or

(c) are brought,

for the purpose of claiming damages for personal injuries, but only if the database is, for the time being, maintained in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1988 .

(2) There may be supplied to the Board, for the purpose of its dealing with an application made to it under section 11 , any relevant particulars entered in a central database.

(3) The Board may supply the following, and no other particulars, for the purpose of their being entered in a central database and, by means of that database, being disclosed to other persons who have access to that database, namely—

(a) the name and address of a claimant who has made an application under section 11 ,

(b) the date on which the accident or incident, the subject of that application, is alleged in that application to have occurred,

(c) the name and address of the person or each of the persons who the claimant alleges in the application is or are liable to him or her in respect of the relevant claim concerned, and

(d) the name of the insurance company or undertaking, if any, which has entered into a policy of insurance with the person or any of the persons referred to in paragraph (c) and which policy provides an indemnity in respect of the claimant's proposed proceedings.

(4) This section is without prejudice to the generality of the provisions of Chapter 4 of Part 2.