The IRB Gateway: Mandatory Application and the Limitation Clock Stop

Two things about the Injuries Resolution Board are routinely confused. Application to the Board is mandatory. Mediation through the Board is not. Everything else about the Irish personal injuries gateway follows from that distinction, including the one feature most likely to cause a limitation problem if misunderstood.

A note on the name first, because both are current. Statutory Instrument No. 627 of 2023 provides that the Personal Injuries Assessment Board shall, on and from 14 December 2023, be known in the English language as the Personal Injuries Resolution Board. The Board itself trades as the Injuries Resolution Board, dropping "Personal". Both names appear in official material, and a document that uses them interchangeably without explanation reads as careless.

Mandatory application, optional mediation

Section 11(1)(a) of the PIAB Act 2003, as revised, provides that a claimant "shall make an application under this section to the Board for an assessment to be made under section 20." The verb is shall.

Section 11(1)(b) is different. A claimant "may apply for resolution of his or her relevant claim by way of mediation under Chapter 1A." That is permissive.

The bar on litigation sits in section 12(1): "Unless and until an application is made to the Board under section 11 in relation to the relevant claim" — and then only when the bringing of those proceedings is authorised under section 14, 17, 32 or 36 — "no proceedings may be brought in respect of that claim."

What falls outside the gateway

The principal carve-out is clinical. Section 3(d) excludes a residual civil action other than one arising out of the provision of any health service to a person, the carrying out of a medical or surgical procedure in relation to a person, or the provision of any medical advice or treatment to a person.

Section 3A excludes claims under the Warsaw, Montreal and Athens Conventions and under Part III of the Merchant Shipping (Liability of Shipowners and Others) Act 1996.

Medical negligence therefore goes straight to proceedings. Everything else in the ordinary run of employer, public and motor liability does not.

The consent architecture, substituted in December 2023

Section 13(2), as substituted with effect from 14 December 2023 by section 4 of the Personal Injuries Resolution Board Act 2022, now asks the respondent to state in writing whether he or she consents to:

• an assessment being made under section 20 of the claimant's relevant claim;
• mediation of the relevant claim under Chapter 1A, where the claimant has applied for resolution; or
• both.

The respondent is answering two separate questions, and may consent to one and not the other. A file note that records only "respondent consented" is no longer adequate.

Mediation itself is consent-based at every stage. The 2022 Act describes it as "a confidential, facilitative, and voluntary process". Where each of the parties states that he or she consents to the claim being the subject of mediation, the Board must arrange it. A party may withdraw from mediation at any time prior to the date of completion of the mediation. Where there are two or more respondents, the Board need not arrange mediation if one refuses or fails to respond.

And there is a ten-day cooling-off period after signature: each party may notify the mediator and the Board within ten days that it no longer accepts the agreement. A mediated settlement is not final on the day it is signed, and a claimant told otherwise has been misadvised.

Mediation was rolled out by claim type. Employer liability from 14 December 2023; public liability from 8 May 2024; motor liability by December 2024.

Limitation: two years, and the clock stop

The limitation period for personal injuries actions is two years. Section 7 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 achieved this by substituting "2 years" for "three years" in section 3 of the Statute of Limitations (Amendment) Act 1991, and correspondingly in sections 4, 5 and 6.

Because application to the Board is compulsory, the Act has to stop the clock while the claim sits with it. Section 50 does that. The period beginning on the making of an application under section 11 in relation to the claim and ending six months from the date of issue of an authorisation under, as appropriate, section 14, 17, 32, 36, 49 or 49A "shall be disregarded". Paragraph (b) does the same for respondents added later, running from the date of addition.

Three practical points. The pause runs from the making of the application, so the date of submission is a date to diary and evidence. The six-month tail after authorisation is part of the disregarded period, not a separate extension bolted on afterwards. And section 50 was amended with effect from 13 February 2023 to add sections 36, 49 and 49A to the list of authorisation provisions — a file worked up from a pre-2023 precedent may be computing against an incomplete list.

The February 2023 changes

Phase 1 of the 2022 Act commenced on 13 February 2023 and made several substantive changes worth knowing:

• A Board assessment accepted by a respondent takes effect as an offer of tender payment in litigation
• The Board gains more time where an injury has not settled
• The Board can assess wholly psychological claims
• Supplying false information to the Board becomes an offence
• The Board may disclose information to An Garda Síochána

The first of those is the one with tactical consequences. An accepted assessment that the claimant rejects now sits behind the claimant as a costs risk if proceedings do worse.

The Act commenced in three phases, not one: Phase 1 on 13 February 2023, Phase 2 on 4 September 2023, Phase 3 on 14 December 2023.

Why acceptance rates matter to the advice

The Board's 2025 figures show 20,077 applications, a consent rate of 69% and an acceptance rate of 47%, down from 50%. The fall has been attributed in part to uncertainty about the revised Personal Injuries Guidelines — a revision that has been submitted but has no legal force. Our analysis of why the 2021 Guidelines still govern every Irish award sets out why, and it is directly relevant here: a claimant rejecting an assessment in the expectation of a higher tariff is rejecting it on a premise that is not currently the law.

Where this sits in your CPD

Procedural compliance of this kind is the clearest possible candidate for the client care and professional standards element of the Irish cycle, which requires a minimum of three hours. Our guide to solicitor CPD requirements in Ireland sets out the full breakdown, including the group study minimum and the eLearning cap.

Two things to verify on your own precedents rather than taking from any guide, including this one: the period a respondent has to state consent, which the statute leaves to the notice and to rules made under section 46, and the Board's current statutory assessment timeframe. Both are commonly quoted in round numbers that the Act itself does not contain.