The respondent's 90 days: consent, mediation, silence or declined

Once your application to the Injuries Resolution Board is complete, the next move belongs to the other side. The Board writes to the person or business you have named, the respondent, and gives them 90 days to say what they want to do. This guide explains that step from your side: what the respondent is told, the four choices, what silence means, and what "declined" means for you.

The word "respondent" comes from the Act. It means whoever you named as responsible: a driver, a shop, an employer, a local authority, a dog's owner. In practice their insurer usually answers the Board for them. The Board's own responding to a claim page is written for the respondent, and this site's chapter 9 guide on the Formal Notice is written for a reader on that side; it may help to read what they are reading.

The Formal Notice

Section 13 of the 2003 Act requires the Board to serve a notice on each respondent, with a copy of your medical report, telling them a claim has been made and asking whether they consent to the Board assessing it. The Board calls this the Formal Notice.

The respondent sees what the Board sees: your name, the circumstances as you described them in the application, and Form B from your doctor. That is one reason the medical report should be exact; our guide on Form B explains what the doctor records.

The Board's FAQ for respondents recommends that a respondent tell their insurer on receiving the Formal Notice, and says the insurer usually deals with the Board on the respondent's behalf.

The 90 days

The Board's pages give the respondent 90 days from the issue date of the Formal Notice. The Act itself says "the period specified in the notice"; 90 days is the Board's practice, and it is what the notice says.

Nothing much happens on your side during the 90 days. The two-year clock is paused under section 50 from the date of your application, for the respondents you named, so the period is not costing you time. If you named more than one respondent, each gets its own Formal Notice and its own 90 days.

The four options

Mediation only happens if you ticked Section 7 of your form too, or ask for it later. The mediation guide covers how it works.

Silence is consent to assessment

A respondent who does not reply within the period is deemed to have consented to assessment under section 14(1)(c). The Board then proceeds as if they had said yes. In practice, the Board's FAQ notes that it may decline to assess where the respondent charge is not paid, and decides that case by case; a respondent who ignores the notice and the charge may find the Board issues an Authorisation instead.

Either way, silence does not stall the claim. The 9 months for the assessment run from the end of the notice period where the respondent did not reply, under section 49(3).

Consent is not an admission

Section 16 of the Act says that consenting, not consenting, or failing to reply is not an admission of liability. A respondent who consents is not saying the accident was their fault. They are agreeing to let the Board put a figure on the claim on the assumption that it was. The Board does not decide fault at any stage; if liability is going to be fought, that happens in court, after an Authorisation.

This cuts both ways. A consent does not mean the respondent will accept the figure when it comes. The respondent has its own 21 days at the end, and silence then counts as acceptance; the guide on accepting or rejecting in 28 days covers that step.

The respondent charge: €1,200

A respondent who consents pays the Board a charge, set at €1,200 by S.I. No. 557/2025 from 1 December 2025. It was €1,050 before that. One charge covers both assessment and mediation where the respondent consents to both. It is paid by the respondent or its insurer and is never charged to you; your own cost is the €45 or €90 application fee, which the Board's FAQ says is recoverable in the award.

What "declined" means

If the respondent declines, the Board does not assess the claim. It issues an Authorisation, which is the document that lets you bring court proceedings; section 12 of the Act bars proceedings without one. The Board's part is then over.

Declining is not a verdict on your claim. Insurers decline for their own reasons: they may want to contest liability, which the Board cannot decide; they may think the injury is too serious or too uncertain for an assessment on paper; they may have a policy of declining certain kinds of claim. The Board's Annual Report 2025 release says 69% of respondents consented during 2025, which means roughly three in ten claims were released without an assessment; the figure is dated on the figures register.

After an Authorisation, three things happen on your side:

1. The clock restarts. Section 50 disregards the period from your application until 6 months after the Authorisation issues. After those 6 months, whatever was left of the two years when you applied starts running again. The time-limit checker will show the date.
2. The one-month letter still matters. Section 8 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 expects a written notice to the wrongdoer within one month of the cause of action, and a court can draw inferences and make no order for costs where it was not sent without reasonable cause. The guide on the section 8 letter explains it.
3. Court means a solicitor. Proceedings need a personal injuries summons, a verifying affidavit and evidence on liability, and the court that hears them depends on the figure: the District Court up to €15,000, the Circuit Court up to €60,000, the High Court above that. The guide on which court sets that out. The Central Bank's figures, on the figures register, put the average time for a litigated motor injury claim at 4.7 years in the first half of 2025, with €26,752 of legal costs in an average of €66,100.

The respondent may also come back later. An Authorisation does not stop an insurer from making a direct offer to settle, and many claims released by the Board settle without a hearing. The guide on an insurer's direct offer explains what signing one does.

If you need to add a respondent

Sometimes the right respondent only becomes clear after the application: a different company owns the premises, or a second driver was involved. The Board can add a respondent. Section 50's pause applies to the added respondent from the date they were added, not from your original application, so the two years run against them until then. Check the dates with the time-limit checker before relying on the pause.

The 90 days in the sequence

The lead guide on how the Board works places this step in the whole process, and the Board page is the site's own page on the Board.

Where this leaves you

The 90 days are the respondent's to use, and most of what you can do is wait and keep your own records in order. The Board timeline planner takes the date on the Formal Notice and shows the end of the 90 days, the 9 months that follow a consent, and the restart of the clock that follows a declined consent, as dates on a calendar.