The Small Claims (Protection of Small Businesses) Bill

On Wednesday the government accepted, in principle at least, Fine's Gael's Small Claims (Protection of Small Businesses) Bill. Of course the number of private member's bills which, unlike this one, actually make it onto the statute book are few and far between (one every five years is probably an overestimate). Our legislature more often acts like a forum where politicians can rant at each other without unduly upsetting the public, who very rarely pay any attention.

The core element of the bill is to do something which really ought to be automatic: it proposes to raise the maximum claimable amount before the Small Claims Court (the District Court for civil cases) from €1,269.74 to €3,000. It's pretty obvious that this change is overdue given that the figure was originally denominated in pounds. In fact, it was last changed by the 1997 by the District Court rules. (Another curious feature of the bill being that all it proposes to do is to amend a statutory instrument.)

It is always of some curiosity to me that while civil servants at the Department for Finance seem to know everything about inflation, their colleagues at the Department for Justice appear to have never heard about it. Thus acts and statutory instruments are still regularly enacted with maximum fines denominated in fixed amounts. And while government departments and agencies regularly rack up the various fees applicable to their services, no statutory scheme has been put in place to increase fines and claim limits — such as those that apply to the District Court and the Circuit Court — in line with inflation.

As a consequence the severity of fines doled out by the courts can sometimes depend more on the age of the act rather than the severity of the criminal offence. Not so long ago a man was finned for running a bar without a drinks licence. A District Judge fined him €500, even though the maximum fine for the offence was £50 (that's €63.50 in today's money).